A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS 

TO 
A  YOUNG  LADY 


A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS 
TO  A  YOUNG  LADY 

PASSAGES  FROM  THE  LATER  CORRESPONDENCE 

OF 
FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD 

*  *  Peu  de  chose  s,  mats  roses  '  * 


BOSTON 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  PRESS 


OF  THE  LIMITED  EDITION  OF  585  COPIES 
THIS  IS  NUMBER     ~*Q 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD  (Photogravure)     .        .       Frontispiece 

WOODCUT  "MARRED"  BY  VERSES 21 

"WHAT  IT  HAS  COST  ME  TO  PICK  up  PINS"        .       .      68 
PROFESSOR  CHILD  IN  His  GARDEN    .       .  102 


FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD 

"WHEN  he  died  the  world  lost  much  more  than 
one  of  its  great  scholars."  So  wrote  Charles  Eliot 
Norton  soon  after  the  death  of  his  classmate,  friend, 
colleague,  and  kinsman  by  marriage,  Francis  James 
Child,  Professor  of  English  in  Harvard  University ; 
and,  to  confirm  these  words,  he  characterized  the 
great  scholar  as  follows  :  "  Original,  quaint,  humor 
ous,  sweet,  sympathetic,  tender-hearted,  faithful, — 
these  are  the  terms  which  first  come  to  mind  in 
describing  him;  the  traits  that  these  terms  imply 
pervaded  all  his  intelligence,  gave  character  to  his 
work,  and  made  his  learning  the  least  part  of  him." 

Professor  Child — Mr.  Child,  as  he  was  far  more 
generally  called  in  Cambridge  —  died  September  II, 
1 896,  nearly  twenty-five  years  ago.  In  the  years  that 
have  intervened  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  em 
body  his  memory  in  a  book.  Separate  articles  about 
him  —  notably  the  paper  by  Norton  in  the  Harvard 
Graduates'  Magazine  from  which  a  few  words  have 
just  been  taken,  and  another  by  Professor  G.  L. 
Kittredge  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  —  gave  to  readers 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  some 
conception  of  his  work  and  personality.  At  this 
late  day  a  full-length  portrait  is  not  to  be  expected. 

The  bare  outlines  of  such  t  a  portrait  would  be 
found  in  the  following  facts  :  that  Francis  James 


vi  FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD 

Child  was  born  in  Boston,  February  i,  1825;  that 
he  was  prepared  at  the  Boston  Latin  School  for 
Harvard  College,  where  he  became  the  first  scholar 
in  the  class  of  1846,  containing  such  men  (besides 
Norton)  as  George  Frisbie  Hoar,  Fitzedward  Hall, 
and  George  Martin  Lane ;  that  immediately  on  his 
graduation  he  entered,  also  at  Harvard,  upon  his 
profession  of  teaching,  practised  in  the  same  place 
for  fifty  continuous  years,  through  the  course  of 
which  he  attained  preeminent  rank  in  the  scholar 
ship  that  bore  its  abundant  fruit  in  the  ten  volumes 
of  his  "  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads  " ;  and 
that  all  his  work  and  friendships  had  the  happiest 
background  in  the  family  life  that  followed  upon 
his  marriage  with  Elizabeth  Ellery  Sedgwick,  of 
Stockbridge,  who  with  their  four  children  survived 
him.  To  construct  a  complete  biography  is  not  at 
all  the  present  purpose,  but  merely  to  present  the 
reflection  of  a  distinctive  and  rarely  beloved  per 
sonality  in  the  mirror  held  unconsciously  by  him 
self,  through  the  last  dozen  years  of  his  life,  before 
his  daily  habits  of  thought  and  work  —  a  reflection 
reduced  to  a  certain  permanence  through  the  fixatif 
of  letters,  now  after  many  years  put  into  print. 

In  one  of  these  letters  he  speaks  of  his  few  "  super 
stitions,"  which  he  enumerates  as  "  love  of  women, 
roses  (including  apple-blossoms),  popular  poetry, 
Shakspere,  my  friends,  wild  flowers,  trees,  violin 
music,  voila!"  It  is  not  so  fantastic  as  it  may 


FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD  vii 

seem  to  relate  this  series  of  nouns  to  the  series  of 
adjectives  which  Norton  employed  in  describing  his 
friend.  Indeed  it  will  be  found  that  the  one  group 
of  words  truly  supplements  the  other  :  a  man  with 
the  objects  of  devotion  which  Child  himself  named 
would  have  been  just  such  a  man  as  Norton  defined 
in  the  terms  that  have  been  quoted. 

On  the  "love  of  women"  which  stands  first  in 
the  autobiographic  list  of  attributes  his  widow,  writ 
ing  soon  after  his  death  to  the  recipient  of  the  letters 
which  make  up  this  volume,  threw  a  significant 
light.  "  He  always  had,  from  the  beginning  of  my 
knowledge  of  him,"  she  wrote,  "friendships  with 
women,  at  first  near  his  own  age,  with  whom  he 
habitually  corresponded,  and  whose  letters  came 
like  fresh  breezes  from  without,  and  then,  as  time 
went  on,  with  younger  friends.  Among  these  let 
ters,  very  conspicuous,  were  the  little  notes  in  gray 
which  announced  themselves  before  opening,  and 
promised  something  new  and  entertaining  to  give 
a  lift  to  the  first  hour  of  morning  work."  In  letters 
of  his  own  Child  wrote  :  "  Loves  of  fourteen  and 
under  have  always  been  delightful  to  me.  When  I 
was  twenty-four  I  was  a  perfect  victim  to  a  girl  of 
twelve  " ;  and  again :  "  I  should  have  been  a  much 
more  voluminous  producer,  if  I  had  not  spent  about 
half  my  life  in  loving  people."  His  friends  among 
women  and  his  roses  stood  side  by  side  in  his  love ; 
and  his  cultivation  of  the  flowers  was  rather  a 


viii  FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD 

sacred  rite  than  a  superstition.  He  was  constantly 
likening  one  of  these  categories  of  his  devotion  to 
the  other,  as  something  of  which  the  merely  mascu 
line  was  unworthy,  something  closely  akin  to  poetry 
and  music  and  all  spiritual  beauty.  In  the  pages 
that  follow,  the  lover  of  roses  will  find  many  terms 
approaching  the  ultimate  of  expression  for  the  true 
initiate  in  the  mysteries  of  their  worship. 

Of  his  other  "  superstitions,"  perhaps  the  foremost 
was  his  love  of  friends.  With  this  sentiment  the 
very  warp  and  woof  of  his  existence  were  filled  as 
with  a  texture.  The  literature  of  friendship  itself 
is  enriched  by  the  passages  in  these  letters  relating 
to  James  Russell  Lowell  —  the  friend  who  remained 
"Jamie"  to  Child  while  he  was  Minister  to  Great 
Britain,  the  friend  whose  death  was  so  devastating, 
yet  so  nobly  chronicled,  an  event  in  the  life  of  the 
stay-at-home  scholar.  One  need  not  look  far  in  the 
Letters  of  Lowell  to  learn  the  place  held  by  Child 
in  his  affections.  The  dear  friend  and  neighbor, 
William  James,  wrote  of  him  in  one  of  the  letters 
appearing  almost  simultaneously  with  these  :  "  I 
loved  Child  more  than  any  man  I  know";  and  in 
another:  "He  had  a  moral  delicacy  and  a  richness 
of  heart  that  I  never  saw  and  never  expect  to  see 
equalled."  ,  In  still  another  place  he  wrote  :  "  I  had 
often  said  that  the  best  argument  I  knew  for  an 
immortal  life  was  the  existence  of  a  man  who  de 
served  one  as  well  as  Child  did."  Less  succinctly 


FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD  ix 

Henry  James,  in  characteristic  vein,  defined  him  in 
"Notes  of  a  Son  and  Brother":  "delightful  man, 
rounded  character,  above  all  humanist  and  humor 
ist.  As  he  comes  back  to  me  with  the  quite  cir 
cular  countenance  of  the  time  before  the  personal 
cares  and  complications  of  life  had  quite  gravely 
thickened  for  him,  his  aspect,  all  finely  circular, 
with  its  golden  rims  of  the  largest  glasses,  its  fin 
ished  rotundity  of  figure  and  attitude,  I  see  that  there 
was  the  American  spirit,  since  I  was  '  after  it,'  of 
a  quality  deeply  inbred;  beautifully  adjusted  to  all 
extensions  of  knowledge  and  taste,  and  as  seemed 
to  me  quite  sublimely  quickened  by  everything  that 
was,  at  the  time,  so  tremendously  in  question." 

Another  of  his  "superstitions,"  not  included  in 
his  own  catalogue,  was  his  love  of  country,  mani 
fested  in  the  highest  ideals  and  practice  of  citizen 
ship.  He  was  indeed  an  ardent  patriot.  Soon  after 
his  death  one  of  his  college  pupils  of  the  Civil  War 
period  recalled  an  incident  which  for  its  suggestion 
of  a  life-long  concern  for  the  public  interest  may 
well  be  brought  to  mind  :  "  Previous  to  Lincoln's 
reelection  in  1864  he  said  to  his  classes:  'Next 
Tuesday  I  must  serve  my  country,  and  there  will 
be  no  recitations.'  So  he  did,  distributing  Republi 
can  ballots  all  day  in  front  of  Lyceum  Hall.  If  I 
remember  rightly,  he  did  the  same  at  the  important 
congressional  election  in  1866."  Instead  of  dis 
tributing  ballots  Child  would  have  been  serving  in 


x  FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD 

the  Army  of  the  Union  had  the  state  of  his  eyes 
enabled  him  to  pass  muster  for  military  enrollment. 
Nevertheless  he  served  according  to  his  unique 
capacity  by  compiling  an  army  song-book  under  the 
title,  "  War  Songs  for  Freemen."  Some  of  the  songs 
he  wrote  himself ;  friends  who  were  capable  of  verse, 
including  Lowell,  Holmes,  Whittier,  and  Julia  Ward 
Howe,  were  called  upon  for  words  to  fit  the  melodies 
that  were  printed  with  them,  and  the  regiments 
which  took  the  little  books  to  the  front  actually  used 
them  there.  Thus  both  with  ballots  and  with 
ballads  —  the  implement  of  influence  in  which  his 
hand  was  most  highly  skilled  —  he  served  his  coun 
try  in  its  time  of  need. 

President  Eliot  has  recently  written  in  an  unpub 
lished  letter  :  "  In  all  the  relations  of  life  Professor 
Child's  chief  characteristics*  were  of  the  gentle, 
sweet,  genial,  friendly  sort;  but  there  was  another 
side  to  him.  He  was  capable  of  feeling  and  express 
ing  sudden  and  strong  indignation,  and  in  these 
moments  he  could  speak  sharply  and  even  fiercely, 
but  nevertheless  in  a  way  that  did  not  exasperate 
his  immediate  opponents  or  the  person  he  was  con 
demning.  .  .  .  Professor  Child  was,  in  the  fifties, 
an  ardent  reformer  in  municipal  politics.  He  was 
in  the  habit  of  attending  the  caucuses  and  other 
public  meetings  which  were  called  in  Cambridge 
to  nominate  candidates  for  municipal  office,  or  to 
further  measures  of  reform  in  the  city.  At  these 


FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD  xi 

meetings  he  was  very  outspoken  and  was  apt  to 
be  vehement.  At  a  meeting  in  1856  to  nominate 
candidates  for  the  Board  of  Aldermen  and  the  Com 
mon  Council,  Professor  Child  spoke  so  hotly  against 
proposals  made  by  the  Irish  boss  of  the  moment, 
and  expressed  so  vigorously  his  opinion  of  the  boss 
himself,  that  a  number  of  his  friends  and  associates 
gathered  round  him  at  the  end  of  the  meeting  to 
accompany  him  on  his  way  to  the  cars.  In  the 
vestibule  of  the  building,  the  boss,  who  had  been  so 
vigorously  denounced,  approached  Professor  Child 
with  his  hand  out,  and  offered  him  a  bunch  of 
cigars,  saying,  '  Have  a  cigar,  Professor ;  don't  you 
smoke?'  Professor  Child  looked  at  him  very 
keenly  for  an  instant,  smiled,  and  remarked,  'Yes, 
I  do.  I  can  match  you  in  any  of  your  little  vices.' 
And  he  lighted  his  cigar  from  the  boss's.  The 
friends  who  had  surrounded  Professor  Child  drew 
apart  without  a  word.  The  incident  illustrated  the 
temperament  of  Professor  Child,  his  capacity  for 
wrath,  and  the  improbability  that  the  persons  to 
whom  his  wrathful  words  were  addressed  would  take 
any  offense,  such  was  the  transparency  of  his  mo 
tives  and  the  charm  of  his  nature." 

"Mere  froth"  Child  considered  such  letters  as 
those  that  follow  —  "affection  in  spray,"  "pen  de 
choses,  mais  roses."  They  were  something  more  to 
his  correspondents,  and  it  is  felt,  not  only  that  his 


xii  FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD 

friends  and  lovers,  the  old  and  those  who  were  young 
in  his  older  days,  will  enjoy  the  refreshing  of  a  tender 
memory,  but  also  that  a  circle  in  which  he  was  per 
sonally  unknown  will  extend  itself  far  enough  to 
include  an  unstudied  practitioner  of  that  happy  art 
of  letter-writing  of  the  quality  one  associates  with 
Charles  Lamb  and  Edward  FitzGerald.  In  one  of 
his  own  letters  Henry  James  has  written  :  'The 
best  letters  seem  to  me  the  most  delightful  of  all 
written  things  —  and  those  that  are  not  the  best 
the  most  negligible.  If  a  correspondence,  in  other 
words,  has  not  the  real  charm,  I  wouldn't  have  it 
published  even  privately;  if  it  has,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  would  give  it  all  the  glory  of  the  greatest 
literature."  There  is  no  small  measure  of  confi 
dence  that  the  letters  here  assembled  truly  embody 
this  charm. 

Of  their  recipient  it  needs  only  to  be  said  that 
she  was  a  young  lady  whom  Child,  as  "  a  relation, 
after  a  sort,"  had  known  since  her  girlhood,  but 
with  whom  his  really  intimate  friendship  began 
when  the  death  of  one  held  dear  by  each  —  a  mem 
ber  of  his  elder  generation — brought  them  into  a 
new  and  close  sympathy.  Her  life  in  the  world 
of  society  stood  in  a  strong  contrast  —  of  which 
he  appreciated  all  the  humorous  implications — with 
his  own  somewhat  cloistral  existence.  From  sign 
ing  himself  F.  C.  he  drifted  quaintly  to  the  ex 
pansion  of  these  initials  into  "  Father  Confessor," 


FRANCIS  JAMES  CHILD  xiii 

and  "  Fra  Cisterciensis,"  or  "  Fra  Cist.,"  from  which 
it  was  an  easy  transition  to  "  Fra  Franciscus,"  and 
"  Fra  Fra,"  a  signature  which  he  was  wont  to  pre 
cede  and  follow  by  crosses.  All  the  imagery  of 
monasticism  —  the  cell,  the  scourge,  the  hair  shirt, 
confession,  and  shrift  —  afforded  abundant  play  for 
his  fancy.  But  the  core  of  the  letters  consists  in 
their  essential  revealing  of  his  devotion  to  his  sev 
eral  "superstitions."  In  the  exercise  of  at  least  one 
of  them  he  habitually  expressed  his  sentiments  in 
terms  of  affection  which,  reduced  to  the  black  and 
white  of  the  printed  page,  will  perhaps  convey  the 
impression  of  extravagance.  But  those  who  valued 
him  most  highly  were  not  the  most  literal-minded ; 
and  to  them  his  seeming  extravagances  revealed  the 
intrinsic  warmth  of  his  own  nature,  and  nothing 
else.  So  accustomed  were  they  to  his  fanciful 
exuberance  of  expression  that  they  could  never  mis 
understand  it.  Thus  it  will  be  with  all  who  read 
the  following  pages  aright. 

Of  quite  secondary  concern,  therefore,  is  the 
identity  of  the  private  persons  who  figure  in  his 
correspondence.  Editorial  notes  of  explanation 
are  accordingly  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  initials 
are  generally  substituted  for  names.  Casual  as 
many  of  the  letters  may  appear,  rescued  as  they 
are  from  a  "blindness"  of  hand-writing  that  has 
seemed  at  times  to  lie  quite  beyond  legibility,  they 
illustrate,  both  in  spirit  and  in  form,  a  phrase 


A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS 
TO  A  YOUNG  LADY 

Friday,  May  — ,  1883. 

WE  are  on  the  very  verge  of  a  grand  reception 
(by  the  Ashburners)  for  L—  — ,  300  invited.  Mis 
ery  hates  company,  and  as  I  have  been  forced  to 
groan  before  —  company,  villainous  company  hath 
been  the  undoing  of  me  —  I  do  not  mean  to  go  — 
have  not  the  energy  to  dress  —  should  feel  lost  in 
the  crowd — am  as  usual  tired — have  a  pile  of  ex 
aminations  which  ought  to  be  begun  upon  (but  will 
not  today,  I  fear) — all  these  reasons.  But  since 
there  will  be  no  object  in  my  writing  after  you  have 

the  society  of  L ,  —  will  there? — I  must  seize  my 

last  chance,  for  she  goes  to  you  on  Monday.  I 
waved  triumphantly  or  vaingloriously,  or  what  not, 
your  last  note  at  her,  and  she  saw  the  address  and 
subscription,  that's  all,  for  I  wished  her  to  think 
you  had  written  deep  things  to  your  confessor.  .  .  . 

We  rode  into  town  together  in  the  best  of  all 
carriages  —  the  open  street-car  —  she  to  lunch,  I  to 
Barnum's.  She  talked  a  little  about  you,  but  very 

little  did  I  learn  from  the  gay  and  sportive  L 

about  her  sister.  To  make  up  for  that,  she  can  tell 
you  more  than  you  may  care  to  hear  about  me  : 
what  a  hobbler  I  am,  how  decrepit  in  body,  in  mind 


2  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1884 

how  morose,  and  so  on;  all  of  which  depicted  by 

L 's  facile  tongue,  as  seen  by  her  penetrating 

woman's  vision,  will  make  a  subject  for  some  five 
spare  minutes. 

I  hope  she  will  tell  you  that  the  roses  I  am  just 
from  are  not  looking  so  badly.  .  .  . 

May  28,  1884. 

May  will  soon  be  May  not,  so  snatch  the  day! 
R—  -  tells  me  that  you  are  establishing  a  flower 
bed,  a  rose-bed.  Now  is  not  that  a  delightful  way 
of  bringing  our  thoughts  together?  Have  you  put 
in  Alfred  Colomb,  Pierre  Notting,  Charles  Lefebvre, 
Louis  Van  Houtte,  Frangois  Michelon,  Mme.  Cra- 
pelet,  Mme.  Gabrielle  Luizet,  Eugenie  Verdier,  Sou 
venir  de  Charles  Martault,  Marie  Baumann,  the 
Common  Moss?  Of  course  you  have,  because 
these  are  my  dears.  But  whatever  you  have  put 
in  will,  I  am  sure,  do  his  best  and  her  best  for  you. 
I  do  not  know  why  any  rose  is  called  after  a  man. 
It  is  an  indignity. 

Here  is  our  little  L ,  sweet  and  bright  as  any 

flower  that  grows,  with  a  little  tear  under  her  petals ; 
gleaming  about  our  grass  and  gravel  two  or  three 
times  a  day.  We  all  adore  her  truly,  and  are  sorry 
to  have  for  the  first  time  to  be  sorry  for  her.  May 
we  never  have  to  be  again. 

I  have  finished  —  excepting  finishing  —  another 
college  year.  It  ought  to  make  me  feel  very  old, 


1 884]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  3 

but  there  is  no  time.  As  soon  as  one  thing  is  done 
I  must  begin  another.  I  don't  mean  that  as  soon 
as  I  have  written  a  billet-doux  to  you,  I  must  ex 
ecute  a  second.  To  whom?  Nay,  but  some  tire 
some  thing  I  must  take  up.  Which  shall  it  be,  the 
one  or  the  other?  I  will  not  even  write  a  sad 
letter  that  I  owe  for  a  dear  young  friend  who  died 
suddenly  in  Paris.  I  cannot  today. 

If  I  could  get  hold  of  L—  -  I  would  make  her 
tell  me  a  great  deal  about  you.  She  has  always 
aunts  and  sisters  about.  There  will  be  no  oppor 
tunity.  But  I  look  to  see  you  in  July,  when  all 
the  dishes,  which  have  been  in  use  at  this  banquet 
de  la  viey  have  been  washed  and  put  away  for  a 
time.  Methinks  I  shall  be  so  tired  that  you  will 
think  me  a  stock.  But  there  is  an  old  stock  in  our 
street  that  is  shooting  out  green  sprouts,  though  cut 
down  within  two  feet  of  the  ground.  You  can  say  : 

"  Sure  thou  didst  flourish  once,  and  many  springs, 

Many  bright  mornings,  much  dew,  many  showers 

Passed  o'er  thy  head,  many  light  hearts  and  wings, 

Which  now  are  dead,  lodged  in  thy  living  bowers." 

Another  of  my  nothings.     Adieu,  with  love, 

F.  C. 

June  27,  1884  (?). 

Vacation  has  begun,  more  by  token  that  I  reck 
lessly  spent  the  morning  in  cutting  off  ruined  roses. 
R.  B.  wrote  me  a  few  days  ago  that  your  roses  were 


4  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1884 

coming  out.  Then  they  did  not  come  out  by  hun 
dreds  and  thousands  in  the  course  of  that  hot  week 
beginning  a  fortnight  ago  :  and  I  shall  be  glad  to 
think  so.  Ah,  what  a  short  season,  with  four  hot 
days  and  four  rains,  and  some  hard  blows  of  wind ! 
But  never  were  my  roses  so  beautiful.  I  have  had 
few  people  to  see  them  and  of  the  few  only  a  few 
that  had  a  call  to  look  at  roses  :  good  people,  bonnes 
meres  de  jamille  probes,  as  Mile.  Le  Clerc  said  of 
the  women  of  Cambridge  (she  added  mais  pas  un 
attrait),  but,  with  respect  to  roses,  ignorant,  unin 
spired,  or  even  frivolous. 

Now  if  I  could  have  had  you  here  for  that  fort 
night!  Perhaps  you  would  have  consented  to  go 
out  now  and  then  early  in  the  morning,  but  that  is 
not  so  essential,  since  you  could  go  out  from  5^  to 
7  P.M.  (Some  days  you  would  have  the  fence  lined 
with  small  boys  and  girls  clamoring  or  doggedly 
waiting  for  a  rose  livery.  That  is  the  advantage  of 
the  morning.)  Many  roses  never  did  so  well  before. 
Even  Pierre  Netting  has  been  a  complete  success 
(owing  to  transplanting  and  cutting  down).  The 
old  favorites,  Marie  Baumann,  Charles  Lefebvre, 
Camille  de  Rohan,  Captain  Christy,  have  only  sur 
passed  themselves  :  they  have  not  been  surpassed. 
So  of  Etienne  Levet,  F.  Michelon  (who  has,  how 
ever,  been  better  some  years  even  than  this),  Count 
ess  of  Oxford,  etc.  Lady  Helen  Stewart  has  been 
charming.  The  Baroness  Rothschild,  Mabel  Mor- 


1 884]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  5 

risen  and  a  White  Baroness  have  been  in  great 
pomp ;  but  I  fear  I  have  ceased  to  care  for  the  whole 
lot. 

Have  you  Prince  de  Portia?  —  oh,  what  perfec 
tion!  And  Mme.  Victor  Verdier,  UlrichB  runner, 
Antoine  Ducher?  But  why  go  on?  Most  of  all, 
have  you  Gloire  de  Margottin?  rather  new,  semi- 
double,  wholly  poetic  and  divine.  I  should  have  been 
twice  as  happy  to  have  had  you  with  them.  But  I 
must  gratefully  own  that  my  family  have  given  me 
much  satisfaction.  I  wish  I  could  see  yours.  I 
don't  believe  that  your  gardener  did  any  harm  by 
cutting  low  :  the  new  roses  require  this  and  often 
die  unless  they  are  brought  pretty  near  to  the 
ground.  In  the  course  of  this  wild  fortnight  I  have 
sometimes  nearly  killed  myself  by  fighting  for  these 
beauteous  creatures,  who  have  had  all  possible  in 
sect  foes  :  but  they  have  come  through  pretty  well, 
and  I  am  the  better  for  it,  though  tired. 

I  have  had  an  interesting  little  volume  waiting 
to  go  to  you  for  a  week  or  more.  The  book  will 
probably  get  away  tomorrow.  Short  as  it  is,  you 
may  skip  a  bit  here  and  there.  You  will  find  the 
man  (it  is  a  biography)  very  original  and  distinct, 
and  there  is  a  deeply  interesting  adventure.  .  .  . 

September  17,  1884. 

I  certainly  should  have  acknowledged  the  gift 
with  which  you  have  so  much  honored  me  in  terms 


6  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1884 

superficially  different  had  we  not  heard  this  morn 
ing  of  Mrs.  Valerio's  death.  Mr.  Bellows  once  asked 
the  Sedgwicks  if  I  ever  could  be  serious.  That 
was  some  score  and  a  half  years  ago.  I  regard  your 
gift  as  a  thing  serious,  and  will  not  affect  to  believe 
that  you  will  be  unwilling  to  have  me  regard  it  as  a 
seal  of  friendship.  But  I  should  have  wreathed  my 
thanks  and  my  delight  in  some  of  my  customary 
folly.  Another  death  makes  it  hard  to  continue  the 
cheerfulness,  which  was  only  an  exterior  before. 
But  that  is  going  beyond  the  mark,  for  your  kind 
ness,  spiced  with  one  violet's  breath  of  affection, 
gave  me  a  home-felt  delight,  made  me  really  hap 
pier,  and  so  far  the  cheerfulness  was  real. 

I  prize  the  picture  very  much.  It  is  much  nearer 
you  than  the  one  I  spoke  of  yesterday  is  to  the 
lovely  object,  but  it  is  not  so  sweet  or  so  animated 
as  your  face  was  yesterday,  is  today.  What  a  lucky 
man  I  am  to  be  winning  a  little  more  friendship  of 
a  kind  which  has  not  been  so  much  my  merit  as 
my  lot,  at  a  time  when  I  had  thought  the  books 
were  closed,  and  I  must  be  content  with  those  who 
are  left  and  those  who  are  beyond.  Your  love  for 
one  who  is  beyond  is,  I  know,  shown  in  your  kind 
ness  to  me.  It  was  the  depth  and  ardor  of  your 

affection  for  S that  first  made  me  wish  to 

acquire  something  for  myself,  and  we  shall  always 
have  an  entire  sympathy  there,  the  same  loss,  the 
same  longing,  the  same  gratefulness  and  hope.  But 


i88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  7 

I  need  not  talk  any  more.  Continue  to  be  gracious 
to  me,  prithee  :  it  does  me  good  and  hurts  you  not. 
Accept  my  constant  affection  and  homage  for  the 
rest  of  time. 

Ever  yours, 

F.  CHILD. 

January  25,  1885. 

He  caste  his  eyen  upon  Emely  a, 

And  therewithal  he  bleynte,  and  cryede,  a! 

Just  so,  dearest  M.,  I  know  you  are  in  New  York 
from  Theodora  Sedgwick  and  I  know  that  Boston 
was  nearly  the  death  of  you.  It  was  in  vain  for  me 
to  pretend  to  myself  and  to  you  that  I  was  to  see 
you  there.  There  is  a  time  mentioned  in  prophecy 
when  another  shall  lay  hands  on  them  and  take 
them  whither  they  will  not.  That  time  arrived 
some  year  or  two  since,  and  has  been  very  pres 
ent  the  last  two  months.  But  what  makes  me 
look  upon  myself  and  curse  my  fate  is  that  I  did 
not  at  least  get  that  half  hour  with  you  which  I 
might  have  had  on  the  way  to  Boston  two  weeks 
this  day.  I  did  not  explain  to  you  that  I  was 
ridden  by  an  obligation  to  do  something  else.  I 
was.  But  after  all,  this  something  did  not  get 
done,  and  all  the  night  and  the  next  day  I  beat  my 
brows  saying,  what  a  balk !  what  a  fool !  what  a  dis- 
cerner  of  times !  That  necessary  thing,  O  shame,  is 
not  done  yet ! 


8  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

If  now  I  had  followed  nature,  put  my  hat  on,  and 
not  let  you  heroically  go  home  alone,  I  should  be 
richer  by  several  recollections,  which  could  console 
me  for  a  neglected  duty,  whereas  I  have  a  double 
burden  to  bear.  So  it  is  with  all  those  who  fumble 
when  they  should  act,  and  do  not  seize  the  butter 
fly  on  the  wing. 

M.,  who  would  have  thought  her  a  deceiver? 
When  I  look  at  this  picture  I  say,  that  is  healthy 
life  itself,  sweetness  and  strength  blent  in  just  the 
blissful  mixture.  But  now  I  hear  that  a  doctor  has 
been  called  in,  and  that  you  are  living  on  milk.  I 
know  it  will  be  of  no  use  for  me  to  wring  my  hands. 
Why  will  you  make  this  world  more  precarious  than 
it  is  ?  I  can  tell  you  that  I  am  counting  upon  your 
living,  being  well  and  being  happy,  and  even  upon  a 
smile  from  you  from  time  to  time.  I  do  not  wish 
to  live  long  enough  to  regret  the  loss  of  you,  or  your 
life  of  health  and  happiness. 

Don't  do  whatever  it  is  that  brings  a  doctor  to 
your  door,  for  just  a  thousand  sakes,  a  thousand 
and  one,  which  is  your  step-step-uncle's  peace.  I 
can  tell  you  again  that  it  is  a  pleasant  thought  to 
me,  when  such  are  wanted,  that  you  are  bright  and 
happy  —  a  thought  that  cheers  even  the  hours  spent 
over  college  examinations,  if  it  happens  to  come  to 
me.  But  if  it  is  an  even  chance  that  you  have  at 
that  moment  a  doctor  at  your  wrist,  I  might  as 
well  not  have  had  the  totally  unexpected  pleasure 


i88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  9 

of  knowing  you.  Come  now,  amitie  oblige  —  ten- 
dresse  oblige  —  don't  be  the  cruelest  she  alive.  What 
is  yours  to  bestow  is  not  yours  to  squander.  You 
are  an  estate  encumbered  with  a  hundred  mortgages, 
and  I  hold  a  very  small  one. 

24-25  February,  1885   (?). 

The  agitating  intelligence  about  you  had  come 
in  the  morning  through  R—  -  to  H—  — .  Your 
own  account,  which  differs  not  essentially,  came  in 
the  evening,  while  I  was  engaged  with  my  boy  over 
Virgil,  and  no  sooner  was  I  done  with  him  than  I 
had  a  prof essor  from  New  Zealand  to  entertain,  who 
has  now  gone  and  leaves  me  on  the  ridge  of  mid 
night.  ...  I  scarcely  know  whether  I  am  not  con 
travening  even  the  doctor  in  writing  you  even  this 
little  word,  since  you  are  ordered  not  to  read.  I 
am  only  writing  a  wine-whey  or  water-gruel  letter, 
to  be  sure,  or  arrow-root  or  toast-water,  whichever 
is  weakest.  Show  it  to  your  doctor,  this  letter,  and 
ask  him  whether  such  things  can  harm.  .  .  . 

In  that  letter  which  I  was  looking  to  write,  I  was 
going  to  explain  that  I  admire  the  photograph  which 
I  have,  and  should  on  no  account  forego  it  to  have 
another  in  what  I  figuratively  called  a  gingham 
gown.  I  expressed  my  whole  mind  when  I  said  that 
I  was  a  little  afraid  of  you  in  so  fine  a  dress.  You 
cannot  go  to  Cox ;  his  sparkling  gelatine  is  only  too 
likely  to  be  forced  upon  you,  and  a  camera  obscura 


io  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

for  a  month  together,  but  not  his.  I  renounce  the 
promised  favor,  at  least  until  you  are  in  perfect  con 
dition.  I  will  have  the  rose  in  your  cheek,  the  life 
in  your  eye.  If  you  want  to  give  me  the  second 
picture,  as  a  special  piece  of  flattery,  you  must  first 
endure  all  the  penances  which  are  necessary  to  re 
store  you  to  your  best  health. 

Since  receiving  a  photograph  is  not  reading  or 
writing,  I  will  take  measures  to  have  some  copy 
made.  Only  I  am  embarrassed  as  to  which  of  the 
old  ones  to  repeat.  It  must  be  some  old  thing,  be 
cause  I  was  more  like  myself  formerly.  But  I  well 
know  that  I  have  several  which  are  very  unlike,  all 
of  them,  marred,  I  suppose,  by  photographic  con 
sciousness.  It  may  be  a  paradox  that  a  man  who 
is  self-conscious  is  not  like  himself.  I  use  the 
words  "photographic  consciousness"  to  help  the 
meaning.  But,  again,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  should 
like  to  have  you  see  me  most  like  myself.  I  do  not 
know  when  I  am,  either.  But  some  of  my  selves  I 
disapprove  extremely.  Perhaps  even  my  ideals 
would  not  be  worthy  of  a  distinguished  place  in 
your  collection,  and  I  am  sure  that  no  photographer 
can  produce  them.  Very  distressing  and  futile,  all 
this.  If  I  only  knew  what  you  would  least  object 
to,  I  could  try  for  that.  I  will  send  you  something, 
and  it  may  amuse  you  if  nothing  else.  In  my 
younger  days  I  gave  my  ever-deplored  dear  Jane 
Norton  a  whole  series  of  ludicrous  portraits,  which, 


1 885]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  n 

now  that  I  have  lost  her,  can  make  me  smile  no 
more.  I  will,  if  possible,  avoid  the  ludicrous.  .  .  . 
Looking  at  your  words  once  more,  I,  your  con 
fessor,  must  confess  that  the  girls  that  love  me  are 
now  too  few  to  support  a  photographer.  I  am  im 
pelled  to  present  the  real  state  of  the  case  under  a 
parable.  A  man,  being  asked  what  his  business 
was,  said  it  was  a  good  business,  a  very  good  busi 
ness,  only  the  demand  was  not  always  very  steady  : 
he  smoked  glasses  for  people  who  wanted  to  see  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun. 

Even  so, 

Your  loving 

F.C. 
(Father  Confessor?) 

I  quite  like  the  idea  of  a  confessor  confessing  to 
his  penitent  and  she  saying  nothing.  Of  a  verity 
I  think  it  was  always  so,  that  a  man  had  more  need 
of  favor  and  absolution,  to  say  I  will  be  called  a 
confessor  because  I  make  the  shrift. 

March  22,  1885. 

I  date  your  month  of  "Rest  Cure"  from  the  23d, 
when  you  last  favored  me  with  a  word.  Great 
praise  is  due  me  for  having  not  gone  counter  to 
the  doctor  in  all  that  time.  I  suppose  he  did  not 
intend  to  forbid  my  bearing  you  in  mind  always. 
I  will  plead  to  having  offended  in  thought  so  far 
as  to  try  to  send  you  a  photograph ;  but  there  I  was 


12  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

helped,  or  thwarted,  by  the  photographer,  who  got 
ready  another  man's  picture  instead  of  mine;  a 
better  man  no  doubt  —  but  will  you  not  say  with 
Prince  Hal  that  you  could  have  better  spared  a  bet 
ter  man?  This  man  was  a  distinguished  German 
entomologist. 

Today  the  photographer  sends  what  comes  with 
this  ;  a  poor  thing,  but  mine  own.  The  Not-man 
does  not  I  believe  signify  aught;  no  more  does  the 
bridal  veil.  A  bull-dog  expression  in  the  jaw  can 
not  possibly  be  intended. 

I  come  to  you,  dearest  M.,  through  six  mortal 
letters  —  one  an  apology;  one,  thanks  and  criticism 
to  an  Englishman,  who  wants  to  print  all  Shak- 
spere's  prose  as  verse;  one  to  a  professor  in  Louisi 
ana,  who  wants  to  make  a  selection  of  English  lit 
erature  for  a  college  library  —  all  of  these  letters 
that  are  not  letters.  You  see  you  have  not  been 
postponed  to  anything  in  the  world,  but  writing  to 
you  is  my  reward  for  having  done  six  things  that  I 
had  long  put  off. 

I  may  tell  you  before  I  forget  it  that  I  had  a  more 
characteristic  picture  than  this  once.  Though  you 
never  might  suspect  it,  my  native  temperament  is 
gay  and  not  morose,  and  I  have  one  photograph, 
that  is  (was)  cheerful.  If  you  don't  like  this  rather 
surly  thing,  I  will  have  the  other  copied  for  you, 
but  perhaps  I  had  better  show  it  to  you  first.  This 
is,  no  doubt,  making  much  ado  about  nothing. 


i88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  13 

Now,  how  are  you  ?  Are  you  convinced  that  you 
are,  in  a  quite  subsidiary  way,  but  still  of  some 
importance  to  us  while  this  vesture  of  decay  doth 
grossly  close  us  in,  mortal?  That  you  must  be  put 
on  the  regimen  as  to  late  hours  and  society?  Pray 
tell  me,  doth  not  your  physician  say  that  you  ought 
to  pass  your  life  with  some  stolid  friend  who  loves 
you  indeed,  but  would  never  stir  your  thoughts  and 
emotions  more  than  one  inch  below  the  surface? 
Because  I  know  such  a  Kur,  but  I  shall  not  tell 
where  it  is  until  the  doctor  speaks.  Has  he  recom 
mended  you  to  go  to  New  Zealand  or  to  Morocco? 
That  is  their  customary  trick.  Now,  I,  as  doctor, 
should  say  go  to  Stockbridge  with  nice  books  and 
no  cares,  get  a  passion  for  plants  and  tend  them, 
moderately,  with  your  own  hands.  Can't  you  com 
mand  such  a  passion?  When  I  was  considerably 
older  than  you  (I  was  once  so  young,  et  in  Arcadia 
ego!),  I  could  scarcely  sleep  for  love  of  plants. 

I  could  consent  to  your  going  with  me  through 
all  the  windings  of  the  Pyrenees,  if  I  only  could  cut 
this  world  long  enough  for  that!  I  want  to  drop 
Cambridge  out  of  my  thoughts  this  summer,  but 
am  more  bound  to  it  than  ever.  .  .  . 

Having  been  shut  up,  you  can't  tell  me  why 
R—  -  and  H—  -  do  not  write  to  me,  haven't 
written  to  me.  Are  they  determined  that  I  shall 
have  but  one  love  at  a  time  ? 

March  seventeenth,  you  know,  was  an  anniver- 


i4  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

sary.     I  did  not  mention  it.     I  suppose  my  wife 
would  not  mention  it  to  me;  two  years  already. 

You  must  not  be  away  from  Stockbridge  this 
year  when  I  go  thither.  I  shall  have  but  two  weeks 
of  freedom,  and  if  I  did  not  see  you  in  that  time, 
what  would  be  the  use?  As  I  look  out  at  the  sky 
and  ground,  there  is  an  almost  imperceptible  yellow 
striking  through  the  sod,  and  a  less  harsh  tone  to 
the  blue,  so  perhaps  summer  will  come.  No  sum 
mer  bird  yet,  no  blackbird,  no  robin. 

Good-bye,  sweet  M.  It  will  do  you  no  harm  if 
you  can  really  manage  to  love 

Your  affectionate 

F.  C. 

Easter  Sunday,  1885. 

This  was  the  day  when  you  were  to  chip  your 
shell  or  burst  your  cocoon.  I  was  doubting  whether 
it  would  be  best  to  write  you  Friday  and  be  present 
by  letter,  or  to  wait  till  today  and  be  writing  while 
the  enfranchisement  was  going  on.  Circumstances 
decided.  My  snowdrops  and  squills  are  pushing 
their  hands  through  in  sympathy,  and  some  of  them 
are  pushing  their  heads  out,  too.  I  fancy  you  more 
like  the  snowdrop  than  the  squill  —  very  white, 
head  a  little  hanging,  countenance  very  pleasant  to 
look  into  when  you  can  induce  the  snowdrop  to 
turn  your  way.  Now  is  the  time  for  you  to  be  in 
some  sunny  place  where  bulbs  were  planted  last 


i88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  15 

year  to  greet  you  in  April.  They  have  not  minded 
this  grim  season.  Their  fidelity  is  a  perpetual 
marvel.  I  hid  away  a  dozen  little  bulbs  of  Spring 
Beauty,  had  forgotten  where  they  were,  how  many 
there  were,  and  now  the  smallest  of  them  seem  to 
say,  you  were  expecting  us,  of  course.  Before  very 
long  their  sweet  little  flowers  will  be  sprinkled  about 
the  little  bed,  three  yards  by  one,  mingling  with 
the  blue  of  the  squills.  I  could  be  very  happy  doing 
nothing  but  looking  at  them  and  caring  for  them. 
But  don't  imagine  that  is  the  way  my  time  goes  — 
any  more  than  in  writing  to  you.  I  have  a  week  of 
vacation  from  college,  only  to  be  more  than  ever 
occupied  with  other  matters  which  college  keeps 
under.  .  .  . 

We  have  been  for  two  days  adoring  those  red 
roses,  such  as  you  say  have  been  filling  your  room. 
They  were  all  that  is  noble  and  sweet,  but  not  even 
for  them  would  I  lose  my  freedom.  I  fancy  that 
more  will  wish  to  celebrate  your  recovery  by  roses 
than  hastened  to  console  your  hours  of  debility. 
As  I  am  present  with  you  now,  I  see  flowers  every 
where.  I  can't  hear,  or  no  doubt  I  should  hear 
fleurettes  in  plenty  besides.  It  would  be  a  good 
part  of  you  to  write  me  all  that  they  said  and  sung 
with  their  flowers;  or  do  they  let  flowers  speak, 
and  not  attempt  to  meddle?  When  they  are  all 
gone,  I  should  like  to  come  in  for  a  few  minutes 
with  you.  But,  alas,  I  have  not  been  provident 


16  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

enough  to  get  my  flowers  ready.  I  never  contend 
with  the  world  about  flowers,  in  these  days  when 
they  are  bought  for  ceremony.  But  were  you  here 
about  the  end  of  June  we  could  try  what  we  could 
do. 

'  All  of  a  sudden  the  glow  is  gone  from  the  trees 
and  grass  seen  from  my  window.  What  has  come 
over  you  ?  It  is  no  frown,  I  know.  You  have  been 
called  away  to  see  somebody  else.  Well,  farewell 
then.  .  .  . 

Every  joy  to  you,  a  glowing  cheek  and  a  bright 
eye  —  and  among  those  joys  the  recovery  of  those 
that  sought  again  the  Water  of  Life  in  Florida, 
where  it  is  not. 

Ever  your  very  loving 

F.  C. 

Sunday  Morning,  May  31,  1885. 

But  one  word  about  roses.  All  the  roses  which 
you  name  are  most  desirable,  and  I  have  had  them 
all  but  Magna  Charta,  Souvenir  d'un  Ami  (Tea), 
and  what  thou  callest  Ayrshire  (which,  I  suppose, 
are  to  cover  up  things  with) .  Jacqueminot  is  one 
of  the  very  hardiest  and  least  fussy,  and  gives  much 
pleasure  ;  albeit  he  does  not  give  you  to  understand 
what  poetry  is,  what  heaven  is,  what  woman  is. 
Mme.  Victor  Verdier  I  have  many  of,  and  she  is 
very  lovely;  so  is  her  daughter  Eugenie.  Anna 
Diesbach  is  a  noble  character,  very  large,  but  small 


i88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  17 

are  those  hearts  that  do  not  take  her  in.  Ell- 
wanger's  book  and  Ellwanger's  catalogue  give  one 
the  exact  truth  about  roses,  and  there  is  nothing 
else  so  useful  to  Americans. 

I  spent  half  an  hour  of  rain  among  my  three  hun 
dred  this  morning,  and  if  they  were  rapture  to  me 
yesterday,  they  were  ecstasy  today.  You  know  that 
the  rose  foliage  is  an  intense  and  very  painful  de 
light  of  itself  and  must  be  scanned  and  worshipped 
every  day  and,  if  possible,  every  few  hours,  before 
those  signs  of  the  curse  pronounced  on  Eden  begin 
to  show.  Though  I  have  been  humbly  adoring  for 
these  three  weeks,  I  have  had  my  high  festival  today. 
The  fine  rain  made  everything  grow  surprisingly 
last  night,  and  the  green,  all  full  of  fire,  the  un- 
marred  grace,  with  no  suggestion  of  art  or  conscious 
ness,  are  too  much  for  words.  Ah !  what  a  world  — 
with  roses,  sunrise  and  sunset,  Shakespere,  Bee 
thoven,  brooks,  mountains,  birds,  maids,  ballads- 
why  can't  it  last,  why  can't  everybody  have  a  good 
share!  I  must  indulge  myself  no  more  now. 

F.  C. 

Wednesday  Night,  June  4,  1885. 

Now  mark  what  ills 

The  rose's  life  assail, 
Thrips,  canker,  slug, 

The  mildew  and  the  gale! 

How  came  you  by  mildew  on  the  very  outset? 
Anything  but  that!     I  have  been  fearing  that  the 


i8  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

cold  and  dark  weather  would  end  so.  My  three 
hundred  were  this  morning,  most  of  them,  in  the 
most  joyous  health.  If  I  saw  the  white  plague-spot 
on  one  leaf,  I  should  be  plunged  in  despair.  I 
hope  with  all  my  heart  that  you  have  no  mildew. 
Aphis,  if  not  excessive,  is  easily  disposed  of.  No 
one  must  grow  roses  that  has  not  a  passion  for  them. 
Nothing  else  takes  one  through  but  passion.  Such 
will  say  of  the  Rose  as  of  Love,  the  grand  passion 
I  mean,  that  all  other  pleasures  are  not  worth  its 
pains.  You  evidently  have  this  passion,  but,  my 
dear  M.,  I  am  not  writing  to  stimulate  it  but  to 
beg  you  to  control  it.  Your  own  bloom  is  of  much 
more  matter  than  the  rose's.  You  cannot  do  such 
things  as  you  describe  in  your  note  of  yesterday 
without  danger.  Be  persuaded;  be  controlled!  If 
you  admit  me  for  a  confessor,  I  will  not,  like  an  old 
Pope,  say:  "Daughter,  pull  up  every  one — just 
because  you  love  them  —  to  have  unfading  roses  in 
heaven."  But  I  shall  be  very  unhappy  if  your  new 
found  deHght  issues  in  a  relapse.  There  is,  between 
that  bloom  you  would  aspire  to,  that  sweet  aspect 
of  roses,  and  your  ruin,  but  one  or  two  such  field 
days  as  you  describe.  You  must  on  all  accounts 
not  repeat  it. 

Tomorrow  comes  a  great  accession  of  occupation, 
and  I  shall  not  be  able  to  repeat  my  ghostly  counsels. 
Examinations  will  exact  all  my  time,  with  printers ; 
so  I  write  tonight,  while  I  can.  I  am  very  serious, 


i88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  19 

and  trust  that  you  will  be  so.  I  will  not  say  to  you 
of  roses  that  all  pleasures  are  not  worth  such  pains. 
Shall  they  be  as  baneful  as  society?  They  were 
meant  to  delight  and  soothe  you.  If  you  go  on  as 
you  have,  I  will  pull  up  mine! 

Your  loving, 

F.  C. 

June  20,  1885. 

You  write  to  one  from  whose  lips  the  cup  of  bliss 
has  ever  been  dashed  at  the  moment  when  he  could 
sip  —  and  a  chalice  in  which  floated  the  fennel's 
bitter  leaf  regularly  substituted;  one  born  to  be 
illuded  and  eluded  in  all  things,  even  as  in  his  simple 
confidence  that  roses  at  least  would  escape  the  com 
mon  lot  and  be  allowed  to  unfold  all  the  charm 
which  Nature  endears  them  with  only  to  balk  them 
and  me.  I  should  say  "us,"  but  it  is  plain  that 
Duty  or  some  other  baleful  principle  preserves  you 
from  that  idolatry  of  them  which  has  been  the  ruin 
of  others.  This  you  knew  before.  You  know  me 
as  a  man  of  a  dark  spirit,  the  mock  of  chance,  all 
whose  voyages  end  in  shipwreck.  The  preface  is 
therefore  superfluous. 

Instead  of  beginning  with  my  logs  today,  I  have 
begun  with  my  letter,  which  will  make  the  logs 
harder  to  carry,  but  will  add  to  the  discipline  which 
is  supposed  to  be  the  object  of  log-carrying.  Trust 
no  futures !  including  futurs.  Make  up  your  mind 


20  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

that  things  will  go  badly,  and  when  they  do  not, 
exult.     This  is  the  only  philosophy. 

You  are  in  New  York  buying  apparatus  for  the 
" Adirondacks "  -a  vague  locality,  but  requiring 
everywhere,  I  believe,  a  special  outfit.  I  have  often 
been  invited  to  go  thither,  but  to  me,  that  is  my 
fancy,  the  name  suggests  only  various  miseries.  I 
must  be  wrong  since  you  and  Miss  L.  deliberately 
choose  it.  Two  maids  setting  forth  for  the  wilds 
without  any  clownish  fool  to  comfort  their  travel! 
Is  one  of  you  to  suit  her  like  a  man?  I  misdoubt 
that  things  will  not  end  so  simply  as  they  begin  — 
some  of  the  trees  will  be  marred  with  carvings  and 
perhaps  even  with  verse.  There  are  names  com 
posed  wholly  of  straight  letters  that  carve  very  well. 
Both  names  carve  very  well,  and  Lina  is  only  short 
for  ALIENA.  All  that  is  very  easy.  Knowing 
who  'LPNA  is,  we  infer  mathematically  many  things 
about  her  comrade.  It  strikes  me  as  I  speculate, 
that  ARDEN  is  short  for  ADIRONDACKS.  I 
see  how  it  will  go.  It  is  a  hard  matter  for  friends  to 
meet,  but  mountains  may  be  removed  with  earth 
quakes.  But  as  for  'LFNA  I  will  not  have  such  a 
thing  happen  as  that  a  villainous  Oliver  should 
carry  off  almost  the  finest  girl  in  nature.  Rolands 
if  you  must,  but  no  Olivers. 

Meanwhile  : 

Roughish  country!  but  were  't  hillier, 
Still  would  I  track  out  Emilia. 


TO  A  YOUNG  LADY 

Rivers,  rills !  but  though  't  were  rillier, 
Waterproofs  would  find  Emilia. 

Silly  people!  were  they  sillier, 
I  could  stand  them  for  Emilia. 


21 


The  <woodcut  here  reproduced  'was  enclosed  in  this  letter, 
and  "marred"  'with  'verse  by  Professor  Child 

I  gathered  from  a  few  words  of  L—  — 's  that 
something  was  brewing.  No  matter.  He  that  has 
passed  his  prime  and  will  not  rub  off  the  buds  of 
new  affections  can  blame  no  one  but  himself  for  his 
plight.  Go,  maid,  and  be  blessed.  I  am  not  the 
first,  nor  shall  I  perhaps  be  the  last.  As  you  kindly 


22  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

tell  me,  I  should  not  have  seen  so  very  much  of  you 
after  all.  Lenox  is  full  of  New  York,  and  half  of 
that  New  York  would  have  been  at  your  door. 
Show  me  the  verses  some  day  in  1890  if  they  don't 
happen  to  be  the  very  ones  which  I  have  found  on 
the  oaks. 

Ever  your  melancholy, 

JAQUES. 

Sunday,  June  26,  1885. 

Do  you  think  it  well  for  me  to  write  to  you  while 
I  am  more  dingy  purple  than  Pierre  Netting  after 
he  has  been  burning  in  three  days'  sun?  Why,  I 
hardly  know,  but  the  fluid  that  stagnates  in  me 
today  is  only  to  be  compared  to  the  lees  of  a  sixty- 
year-old  bottle  of  Madeira.  Above  these  lees  in 
the  bottle  I  have  in  mind  is  a  clear,  fine,  generous 
blood  such  as  glows  in  Louis  Van  Houtte  when  the 
stars  are  kindly  :  but  not  one  drop  in  me  today, 
if  ever.  Much  of  this  turbidness  comes  from  seeing 
the  short  and  perilous  life  of  my  roses.  I  cannot 
bear  to  witness  the  world's  dealing  with  such  perfec 
tion  of  beauty  and  nobleness.  It  is  today  quite 
too  utterly  crushing.  I  wish  I  had  nothing  but 
dahlias  to  look  at.  For  the  twentieth  time  I  repent 
me  that  I  ever  lived  to  know  what  roses  are.  Every 
body  tells  me  that,  though  this  is  a  bad  year,  my 
roses  are  supernal.  I  hear  complaints  from  all 
quarters  around  me,  and  I  have  enough  failures  of 
my  own.  But  it  is  not  the  failures  that  make  my 


1 885]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  23 

mind  so  black  :  it  is  the  successes ;  it  is  seeing  divin- 
est  beauty  stricken  with  ugly  decay  only  a  few  hours 
after  it  has  reached  its  perfection.  Well,  let  it  go. 
I  have  been  time's  fool  now  twenty  times. 

I  saw  nothing  peculiarly  baleful  in  those  leaves. 
No  doubt  your  roses  will  conquer  for  themselves 
their  half  day  of  glory,  by  and  by,  and  then  perhaps 
you  will  be  only  the  more  melancholy.  If  those 
were  Teas  for  which  you  were  weeping,  Teas  are 
good  for  little  the  first  year,  but  they  ought  not  to 
be  sickly.  I  tell  you  again,  it  is  the  thriving  ones 
that  pierce  my  heart  and  embitter  my  mind.  To 
day  I  am  nigh  to  wishing  that  the  whole  genus 
might  disappear  —  a  la  Job.  Yesterday  I  gave 
away  eight  or  nine  noble  nosegays  and  supplied 
some  thirty  ragamuffin  children  besides.  There 
was  no  end  to  the  "Ohs!"  My  garden  was  as  full 
as  the  sky  with  stars.  You  ought  to  have  seen 
them.  There  is  plenty  left.  I  have  cut  but  one 
bunch  today  and  feel  as  if  I  never  could  cut  another. 
I  have  had  both  single  roses  and  bushes  which  sur 
passed  belief.  But  it  is  enough  to  make  a  fellow 
cry  and  howl  Avaunt !  Come,  Atropos,  I  say !  Let 
us  stay  indoors,  smoke  cigars,  read  examination- 
books  even,  rather  than  look  at  a  rose.  I  am  long 
ing  for  something  perfectly  dry  —  Old  English  gram 
mar,  that's  my  sort.  Quaff  quassia  chips,  rather 
than  the  ambrosial  nectar  :  it  will  agree  with  me 
better  in  the  end. 

So  you  will  not  go  to  Arden  tomorrow.     I  ought 


24  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

to  be  sorry.  I  probably  am  sorry.  I  certainly  am 
sorry  for  Aliena.  But  you  will  go  later,  and  to 
my  infinite  amusement  you  essay  to  steal  the  clown 
ish  fool  out  of  your  father's  court.  Quite  right. 
Orlando  would  come  after,  and  the  fool  would  say  : 
This  is  the  forest  of  Arden !  When  I  was  at  home 
I  was  in  a  fitter  place.  No,  you  shall  not  take  me 
as  fool,  nor  shall  you  find  me  as  Jaques,  and  it  is  too 
certain  that  I  cannot  happen  to  go,  like  Orlando. 
Do  not  let  the  question  of  my  coming  to  the  Duke's 
Court  be  a  burden  and  an  impediment  to  you.  The 
last  half  of  July  is  my  opportunity,  if  that  time  suits 

— .  I  am  mad  to  take  any  vacation.  I  have  an 
alarming  piece  of  work  hanging  over  my  head,  which 
must  be  done,  and  punctually,  and  here  I  am  think 
ing  of  lounging  for  two  weeks. 

A  storm  is  gathering  which  means  devastation, 
more  blackness  within.  If  I  shall  have  to  perish, 
here  is  my  chance.  Let  the  rude  scene  end,  and 
darkness  be  the  burier  of  the  dead!  Why  do  I 
flinch?  for  flinch  a  little  I  do.  Perhaps  it  will  be  as 
well  if  I  let  other  people  enjoy  what  just  now  gives 
me  only  pain.  The  children  don't  look  at  them  as  I 
do.  I  ought  to  make  a  vow  not  to  pass  by  them, 
look  out  upon  them,  speak  of  them  any  more.  I 
feel  as  though  I  should.  But  perhaps  I  shall  not. 

Now,  was  there  ever  a  more  absolutely  unneces 
sary  letter  than  this?  Even  those  that  have  pre 
ceded  it  will  seem  to  purpose  by  comparison.  Yet 


1885]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  25 

this  letter  reflects  me  quite  fairly.  What  I  need  is 
work.  Blessed  pile  of  blue  books,  come.  Potions 
of  eysil  'gainst  any  strong  infection. 

Farewell,  kind  M.,  and  converse  with  rational 
beings. 

F.  C. 

Sunday,  5  P.M.,  August  23,  1885. 
If  I  wait  three  weeks  to  answer  your  question, 
you  will  have  had  three  weeks  less  reading  of  Shak- 
spere,  and  I  conceive  that  that  would  be  a  loss  for 
ever.  I  should  rather  have  that  edition  in  forty 
volumes  than  in  twenty.  I  have  seen  the  one  in 
twenty  —  what  is  the  advantage  of  having  two  plays 
bound  together?  Rolfe's  edition  is  not  the  best 
thing  that  can  be  imagined,  but  it  is  very  good  and 
also  very  handy.  You  could  not  possibly  be  better 
occupied  than  in  reading  fifteen  of  the  plays  over 
fifteen  times  consecutively  and  learning  whole  acts 
by  heart.  Those  plays  have  enriched  the  world 
more  than  all  books  taken  together.  Who  can 
spare  Portia,  Miranda,  Helena,  Desdemona,  Cor 
delia,  Viola,  Rosalind,  even  though  he  has  been  so 
placed  as  to  know  L.,  M.,  R.,  S.?  And  what  should 
those  poor  bodies  do  who  have  not  known  and  never 
can  know  an  L.,  an  M.,  an  R.,  an  S.?  How  much 
we  often  would  give  to  know  intimately  a  sweet 
woman  whom  we  see  at  a  concert  or  meet  in  the 
street!  and  no  one  is  cut  off  by  fate  from  knowing 


26  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

Portia  except  the  few  that  are  cut  off  from  reading 
English.  Those  who  have  not  the  honor  of  visiting 
the  Belmonts  are  welcome  at  Belmont.  Perdita 
will  give  a  flower  to  anyone  that  will  come  to  her 
sheep-shearing.  Not  only  do  we  get  our  ideals 
from  Hermiones  and  Juliets  and  Celias,  but  we 
interpret  our  lovers  and  friends  through  them. 
They  open  our  dull  eyes  —  we  men's — to  noble 
ness,  graces,  and  charms,  which  else  we  should  have 
missed.  This  is  very  superfluous,  truly,  but  is  only 
an  outburst  of  gratitude.  .  .  . 

I  have  done  nothing  this  week  but  read  old  let 
ters,  tie  up,  burn.  It  has  been  a  sad,  sweet  occupa 
tion.  In  that  grate  behind  me,  I  have  put  hun 
dreds  of  sheets  that  once  lighted  my  eyes  and 
thrilled  my  heart.  The  ashes  would  go  into  a  tiny 
urn,  and  but  little  larger  would  be  the  urn  that 
would  hold  the  ashes  of  the  writers.  I  have  lived 
over  again  half  my  life  —  all  of  my  life  that  is  of 
any  great  account.  I  could  not  stop  when  once  I 
had  begun.  I  went  through  all  —  not  reading  all, 
of  course  —  but  inspecting  all,  reading  much,  recall 
ing  many  who  are  dead,  more  than  those  that  still 
live.  I  wish  I  could  show  you  some  specimens  of 
the  treasures  which  I  have  ransacked.  .  .  . 

Dearest  M.,  wonder  not  that  a  seed  grows,  fire 
burns,  water  flows.  I  hope  to  live  to  love  you  more 
yet,  though  like  one  of  "  our  dears,"  Cordelia,  I  love 
and  be  silent.  .  .  .  Tomorrow  I  must  put  my  affec- 


1 885]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  27 

tions  under  lock  and  key  and  actually  go  to  work. 
I  have  done  next  to  nothing  yet  :  think  how  shame 
ful!  I  charge  this  remissness  on  weather  and  on 
my  anniversary.  I  wish  I  could  have  such  precious 
little  letters  as  your  latest  ones  —  or  any  of  yours, 
but  it  is  only  honest  to  admit  that  the  latest  are  the 
best  —  have  them  every  day  and  write  as  often  : 
but  what  is  this  world  we  live  in !  I  must  do  some 
thing.  I  have  had  enough  to  sweeten  toil.  .  .  . 

I  am  glad  you  can  think  so  kindly  of  me.  It 
cheers  me,  it  inspirits  me.  You  know  a  part  of 
what  I  think  of  you.  Believe  that  I  shall  love  you 
faithfully.  ...  I  will  try  to  get  another  photograph 
which  may  please  you  better  than  the  surly  fellow. 
.  .  .  Benedicta. 

*  FR.  CIST.  * 

October  25,  1885. 

The  sote  smel  that  in  myn  herte  I  finde 
Hath  chaunged  me  al  In  another  kynde. 

So  you  were  wearing  out  your  eyes  on  that 
cushion,  sewing  o'  nights  like  one  who  makes  shirts 
for  sixpence!  I  have  taken,  or  tried  to  take,  two 
sleeps  on  it,  and  I  can  declare  that  it  is  sovereign 
for  all  pains  in  the  head,  and  that  its  power  extends 
much  farther  and  comforts  the  roots  of  the  heart. 
What  a  sweet  inspiration  it  was  that  led  you  to 
make  that  cushion.  I  delight  in  the  odor  above 
all  things.  I  keep  the  cushion  in  a  drawer  with 


28  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

my  work.  When  I  take  out  my  work  there  comes 
a  breath  of  M.  I  get  handkerchiefs  steeped  with 
the  fragrance.  The  old  verses  have  a  very  good 
savor  of  their  own,  but  you  have  now  imparted  a 
better.  Altogether,  with  the  stuff,  and  the  balsam, 
and  the  thought  and  the  work,  and  the  motto, 
and  the  wishes,  nothing  could  be  more  complete, 
dearest  M.,  and  if  it  were  the  fashion  I  would  send 
you  a  kiss  of  grateful  affection. 

I  have  been  having  a  bad  enough  head,  beginning 
with  a  pain  in  the  head  and  going  on  to  neuralgia 
shooting  like  Northern  Lights.  Generally  I  have 
been  decidedly  down;  but  I  have  kept  on  working 
as  well  as  I  could  (with  dreadful  low  spirits,  I  will 
confess  to  this),  and  now  my  principal  thought  is 
that  in  two  months  I  shall  have  to  begin  to  lec 
ture1 --so  must  be  ready.  I  shall  hate  giving  them 
next  to  scrambling  them  up,  but  shall  I  not  enjoy 
burning  'em  a  few  weeks  after  beginning?  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  I  do  not  think  any  other  thoughts 
except  of  course  little  breathings  of  affection.  I 
am  a  toad  on  a  cold  stone,  but  let  me  get  through 
and  never  will  I  be  so  bored  again. 

It  cheers  me  to  think  you  are  going  to  like  Wash 
ington.  .  .  .  You  understand  the  fine  art  of  loving, 
or  the  art  of  fine  loving,  rather,  is  what  Chaucer 
calls  it.  I  see  by  the  little  gleams  7  get.  You  know 

1  Professor  Child  was  preparing  a  series  of  twelve  Lowell  Institute  Lec 
tures  on  "Early  English  Poetry,"  to  which  there  are  allusions  in  letters 
that  follow. 


1 88s]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  29 

when  to  read  a  letter.  You  know  everything  that 
/  know,  and  how  much  more  perhaps.  I  really 
think  you  could  teach  my  youngsters  two  or  three 
things  very  desirable  for  them  to  know.  t  I  hope  the 
bairns  will  have  some  such  instruction  in  their 
day.  Without  it,  what  are  the  books,  the  schools, 
the  academies?  I  have  not  forgotten  the  art  en 
tirely,  though  I  have  retired  from  the  practice  of  my 
profession. 

But  now  I  am  not  talking  like  a  Fra  Cist.  I 
must  pull  up  my  cowl.  Here  is  a  beautiful  after 
noon.  Were  I  where  you  are  (then  should  I  be 
where  I  would  be),  I  should  throw  up  anything  for 
a  walk  in  the  woods,  if  you  could  go  with  me.  Well, 
dear  and  sweet  M.,  even  these  months  will  go.  I 
suppose  you  only  jest  when  you  speak  of  coming 
this  way  from  Newport.  You  would  not  again  be 
allowed  to  find  the  way  to  Boston  alone. 
Your  grateful  and  loving  ever, 

^  FRA.  CIST.  ^ 

November  17  [1885]. 

I  put  no  year,  because  this  letter  belongs  a  great 
way  back,  and  a  great  way  forwards;  not  quite 
back  to  the  beginning,  for  it  is  absurd  that  I,  so  old, 
should  be  writing  to  you,  so  young,  without  my 
writing  to  the  babe  that  could  not  read  my  writing! 
I  go  back  to  a  time  when  you  were  able  to  make  out 
what  I  say,  even  when  I  write  in  the  dark. 


30  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

Why  should  the  eve  of  so  happy  a  day  be  lower 
ing,  and  the  time  only  4^2  ?  I  have  come  in  from 
roses,  that  would  be  proud  to  bear  you  a  daily 
bunch  next  June,  but  now,  when  I  crave  their  help, 
can  do  nothing.  I  have  cut  many  of  them  up  while 
transplanting  and  they  beg  me  to  let  them  sleep 
four  months.  It  has  all  been  done  in  stolen  time. 
I  could  not  let  them  go,  that  is  my  only  apology. 

It  occurred  to  me  when  I  came  in  that  this  day 
was  almost  gone,  and  that  if  I  really  meant  to 
attend  your  levee  I  must  be  quick.  And  now  I 
don't  like  to  write  to  you  quick.  I  had  rather 
think  about  you  a  little  first.  Here  is  your  picture, 
always  by  my  right  hand,  though  under  cover. 
Chance  visitors  will  not  be  allowed  to  look.  Come 
now,  where  is  my  garland  for  you?  You  were  born 
in  November  because  there  was  nothing  in  nature 
to  make  that  month  tender  and  sweet.  You  have 
no  rival.  The  month  is  yours.  I  confess  I  have 
always  loved  the  earlier  days  of  it,  before  nature  has 
received  her  final  stroke.  I  like  to  go  about  on 
fallen  leaves  and  offer  the  waning  world  my  reverent 
sympathy.  But  now  there  is  not  a  leaf  to  fall;  it 
would  be  a  bare,  gray,  chilly  northeast  day  but  for 
the  light  that  comes  from  you.  Thank  you,  sweet  M., 
for  being  born.  You  might  have  staid  in  Heaven 
and  have  left  us  to  get  on  as  we  could.  Thank 
you  for  resting  at  last  on  my  horizon.  I  was  be 
coming  very  poor,  that  had  been  rich,  when  sud- 


1 885]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  31 

denly  a  fortune  was  rained  on  my  head.  Shall  I 
not  have  enough,  if  I  keep  you,  to  live  on  for  the 
rest  of  the  time?  Or  do  you  advise  me  to  look 
elsewhere?  As  long  as  you  have  not  given  your 
heart  completely  away  I  will  get,  and  keep,  all  I 
can  of  it.  Why  should  I  say  "  get,"  when  all  I  get 
is  of  grace  and  not  to  be  had  in  any  other  way?  I 
must  not  get  or  earn,  but  accept.  It  is  a  pity  that 
I  should  be  in  such  a  flurry  at  your  feast,  the  sweet 
M.-Mass.  I  will  not  be  again  after  this  year;  noth 
ing  shall  drive  or  persuade  me.  I  suppose  there 
will  be  a  throng;  still  at  some  moment  of  the  day 
you  will  have  time  to  run  off  with  me  just  long 
enough  for  me  to  say  that  I  love  you,  and  more  truly 
and  fondly  than  ever. 

^  FRA.  CIST.  ^ 
» 

December  8,  1885. 

Again  it  is  too  dark  to  look  at  a  book  and  not 
quite  dark  enough  to  light  a  lamp,  and  being  a  little 
lazy  from  an  unprovoked  and  untimely  attack  of 
rheumatism,  I  devise  to  write  you  one  little  sheet  to 
justify  myself  for  not  writing  more. 

I  cannot  imagine  how  you  live  in  Washington; 
but  then  I  can't  imagine,  except  in  the  most  general 
way,  how  you  live  in  New  York.  .  .  .  But  unless 
you  give  yourself  up  to  society  you  would  be  out  of 
place  in  Washington.  ...  It  must  be  that  you  are 
deep  in  society  —  where  everybody  whirls  —  and  find 
music  in  its  roar.  I  expect  to  see  you  so  thin  with 


32  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1885 

watching  that  for  once  you  will  be  transparent. 
Six  pairs  of  shoes  a  week  danced  out  —  weekly  relays 
of  toilettes  from  New  York  or  Paris  —  breakfast 
at  twelve,  with  a  headache  —  a  little  tuned  up  by 
calls  from  the  diplomatic  corps  at  two  —  who  find 
their  match  and  a  good  deal  more.  Drive  out  — 
afternoon  tea  —  dinner  at  eight  —  ball  at  eleven  — 
coucher  at  three  —  lever  at  eleven.  How  is  that  for 
a  sketch?  Sketchy?  I  have  left  little  intervals  of 
silence  during  which  you  can  confess  or  get  your 
shrift  ready.  Let  me  see!  What  shall  I  tell  my 
Padre?  Was  that  very  short  flirtation  bad  enough, 
or  would  it  not  be  trifling  with  the  seriousness  of 
his  office  to  say  anything  about  it?  Decidedly  it 
would.  He  will  never  expect  me  to  tell  him  how 
late  I  stay  out,  and  run  myself  down ;  or  what  people 
say  to  me  —  in  confidence  —  at  dinner.  I  shall 
only  tell  him  that  I  love  him,  and  then  he  will  never 
think  of  being  inquisitive. 

Now  as  for  your  confessor.  He  thinks  he  has 
nearly  come  to  the  end  of  his  twelve  plagues.  He 
must  be  there  in  three  weeks  from  this  evening, 
because  then  his  lectures  begin.  He  is  as  full  of 
rheumatism  in  his  feet  at  this  moment  as  if  he  were 
all  lead,  and  he  goes  to  see  an  M.D.  once  a  week, 
but  is  pretty  well  still.  .  .  . 

I  remain  ever  thy  tender,  though  severe, 

*  FRA.  CIST.  ^ 


1 885]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  33 

December  30,  1885. 

Did  you  mean  to  ask  me  why  I  chose  to  be  a 
Cistercian?  Because  the  name  begins  with  a  C, 
and  because  the  order  used  to  be  very  ascetic,  and 
because  St.  Bernard  made  it  great,  who  exalted 
love  above  all  things.  I  am  missing  my  hours 
and  neglecting  my  rosary.  What  is  my  rosary? 
A  rosary  of  400  beads,  and  each  bead  prompting 
thoughts  of  M.  A  rosary  "  gauded  all  with  green," 
as  Chaucer  says. 

You  know,  in  part,  why  I  have  been  so  stupid, 
so  blockish,  so  twaddling  these  last  four  months.  I 
don't  announce  that  all  this  is  over,  but  the  cause 
can  no  longer  be  pleaded.  I  have  some  six  or  seven 
hundred  pages  of  bad  writing,  which  I  can  stuff  into 
12  hours,  as  if  they  were  so  many  sausages,  and  one 
of  these  sausages  was  doled  out  to  the  public  last 
night.  There  were  some  8  or  9  hundred  people, 
and  every  one  of  them  had  enough.  A  miracle  was 
operated  in  my  favor,  I  don't  know  how  it  was.  I 
have  been  doing  the  life  of  St.  Margaret  in  stanzas 
of  four  lines,  after  this  fashion  :  — 

All  ye  that  be  in  deadly  sin  and  will  with  mercy  meet, 
Believe  in  Christ  that  gave  you  wit,  your  sins  to  expiate: 
Listen  and  ye  shall  hear  me  tell  with  wordes  fair  and  sweet 
The  life  of  a  maiden  men  call  St.  Margarete. 

Whether  St.  Margaret  has  ever  known  catarrh 
and  sore  throat,  I  know  not:  but  all  the  same,  I 
was  looking  to  have  a  dry  cracking  throat,  which 


34  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

could  set  me  coughing,  and  hardly  speak  a  word  all 
day;  but  all  the  hour  of  my  lecture,  I  had  no 
trouble,  my  eyes  did  not  overflow  with  uncalled- 
for  tears,  and  my  throat  did  not  tickle.  Today  I 
am  as  unconcerned  as  yon  English  sparrow  that  is 
eating  bread  I  have  thrown  to  him.  The  sky  is 
bright  and  I  am  longing  to  be  out,  pruning  my 
roses,  but  they  must  wait  two  months  or  more.  I 
am  in  a  humor  to  send  bouquets  of  Catherine 
Mermets  to  all  my  audience !  There  were  several 
old  loves  in  it,  besides  my  wife,  but  they  did  not 
come  for  love,  but  for  instruction ! 

I  did  not  send  you  anything  for  Christmas  be 
cause  I  could  not  find  or  invent  any  thing  fit.  If 
I  had  had  time,  I  should  have  invented  something, 
but  I  was  working  away  down  in  a  coal-mine.  Here 
is  the  last  time  for  the  year  '85. 

Adieu,  with  old  love  and  new. 

Tuesday  Night,  January  12,  1886. 
Perhaps  I  am  in  time  to  take  a  look  at  you,  my 
sweet  M.,  before  you  go  down  to  your  carriage.  It 
is  not  yet  half  past  ten.  I  dismissed  my  carriage 
an  hour  ago ;  but  who  knows  your  hours  ?  If  I  only 
had  not  slipped  off  my  coat  for  something  less 
formal  I  should  be  in  proper  dress  to  accompany 
you.  I  think  a  man  who  has  this  very  evening  been 
lecturing  on  British  Poetry  [has]  a  right  to  go  to 
the  British  Embassy!  But  I  am  more  pleased  to 


[988i       TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  35 

be  writing  to  you  in  grand  full  dress.  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  could  not  paint  his  best  unless  he  was  in 
his  best  trim,  and  the  reason  why  I  do  not  write 
you  at  least  better  letters  may  perhaps  lie  in  my  not 
feeling  that  I  am  presentable. 

I  don't  think  I  will  go  to  the  Embassy  with  you. 
Runaway's  eyes  shall  wink.  I  want  you  to  have 
your  share  of  flirtations  uninspected.  I  am  now  so 
sure  of  your  true  affection  that  I  can  afford  you 
some  little  variety,  and  even  if  I  were  present 
should  not  eye  you  askance.  And  you  think  that 
/  have  been  having  my  own  little  indulgences,  too. 
Nothing  of  the  sort,  my  M.  The  old  loves  I  spoke 
of  were  not  objects  of  passion,  but  old  friends.  I 
had  still  more  tonight,  and  lucky  it  was,  for  by 
persisting  in  dragging  people  through  three  or  four 
nights  of  Anglo-Saxon  I  have  reduced  my  numbers 
very  much ;  but  the  quality  has  improved.  Among 
those  that  I  had  a  word  with  tonight  were  Fanny 
Morse  and  her  sister  Mary,  Ida  Higginson,  Kath- 
erine  Ireland.  Miss  Addie  Bigelow  was  there,  but 
I  did  not  see  her,  and  a  good  many  nice  people  whom 
I  should  not  know ;  but  the  number  was  small,  and 
not  merely  because  the  night  was  very  cold.  Those 
who  were  there  were  impressed  as  I  wished  they 
should  be. 

I  tell  you  again  that  M.  knows  the  best  of  all 
sciences  as  well  as  any  woman  in  or  out  of  poetry. 
She  is  safe  at  any  Embassy.  By  the  way,  I  hope 


36  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

the  continental  diplomats  are  a  little  more  worth 
seeing  than  they  were  when  I  last  saw  them  at  New 
port.  I  think  you  are  going  to  have  a  happy  week, 
and  this  I  wish  devotedly  and  devoutly.  You  might 

give  my  love  to  L an  she  pleases. 

Ever  thy  tender  loving 

*  FR.  C.  * 

February  6,   1886. 

On  consulting  a  certain  calendar  which  is  often 
consulted,  I  find  January  12  and  January  27 
marked  as  red  days  and  only  January  12  as  black  : 
twenty-five  days  silence  on  my  part.  Ask  the  whole 
diplomatic  corps,  your  intimate  friends,  whether 
that  is  not  carrying  discretion,  obedience,  and  self- 
abnegation  far  —  too  far  even  fora  Cistercian.  But 
first  indicate  the  answer  which  you  expect,  and  let 
that  answer  be,  beyond  all  measure  too  far.  In 
public  life  they  seek  to  baffle,  in  private  life  only 
to  conciliate ;  and  it  is  worth  the  diplomatic  corps' 
while  to  conciliate  me. 

Had  you  come  last  night  to  the  last  lecture,  I 
should  not  be  sitting  here  today  :  I  should  be  glid 
ing  over  the  snows  with  you  by  my  side  (should  I, 
though?) .  You,  to  be  sure,  would  have  been  frozen 
on  your  way,  yesterday,  for  the  thermometer  kept 
an  average  just  below  zero.  In  consequence  of  the 
severe  cold  one  of  the  most  constant  and  lovely 
of  young  women  was  not  there.  I  do  not  at  the 


i886]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  37 

moment  mean  you  (in  your  case  should  I  say  one 
of?).  A  good  many  oldish  ladies  were  old  enough 
not  to  be  hurt  by  a  story  of  a  princess  accepting 
almost  at  the  first  word  a  Squire  of  Low  Degree. 
I  suspect  there  was  a  brilliant  party  somewhere 
besides  Washington  last  night,  for  the  lovely  con 
stant  one  referred  to  has  minded  neither  cold  nor 
wet. 

Now  I  am  done  with  lectures,  M.,  I  have  all  but 
forgotten  what  has  been  going  on  these  six  weeks  — 
my  dress  coats,  my  heroines,  my  saints.  I  should 
have  to  make  an  effort  to  remember  what  I  have 
been  talking  about.  .  .  . 

The  most  complete  of  things  would  have  been 
for  you  to  have  finished  your  visit  in  Boston  yes 
terday  and  me  to  take  you  to  Stockbridge  today. 
But  why  do  I  say  such  things  while  the  Italian 
Minister  and  the  Spanish  are  severally  contending 
for  your  ear,  the  French  for  an  appointment  at 
tonight's  ball,  and  an  English  attache  is  just  offer 
ing  his  arm  for  a  promenade?  Can  I  suppose  that 
M.  remembers  the  halls  of  L—  — ,  and  what  was 
done  once  between  tea  and  talk?  Was  there  ever 
anything  so  like  Lorenzo  and  Jessica,  and,  alas,  so 
unlike!  Not  even  the  comfort  of  ending  "such  a 
night "  with  "  slander  his  love  and  she  forgave  it 
him."  But  this  will  not  do,  Father  Francis.  If 
you  happen  not  to  have  your  hair-shirt  on,  let  me 
recommend  you  to  don  it.  Of  course  I  have  worn 


3  8  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

one  full  of  knots  all  these  six  weeks,  to  remind 
me  to  what  order  I  belong,  though  I  read  romances 
to  lovely  beings  in  the  front  row  just  under  my 
desk.  I  don't  suppose  you  know,  but  you  may,  one 
of  the  sweetest  surprises  in  life  —  to  find  an  old 
note,  that  is,  a  lost  note,  a  forgotten  note,  in  your 
pocket,  or  in  a  drawer,  or  in  a  box.  Well  —  I  can't 
say  try,  because  you  must  not  remember  to  forget. 
I  have  this  moment  something  of  the  kind,  only 
beyond  comparisons  :  I  have  come  upon  a  note 
of  yours  which  I  supposed  had  been  sublimed  to 
ether  by  passing  through  flame  —  your  pillow  note, 
so  to  call  it.  You  could  not  write  such  a  note  in 
Washington;  it  must  come  from  a  woody  place  as 
well  as  from  a  fragrant  season.  It  is  most  fortu 
nate  that  I  have  kept  it. 

I  hear  that  you  have  a  grand  dinner  at  your  house 
every  week.  Still  am  I  well.  I  think  you  go  to 
two  or  three  more.  Yet  I  am  well.  I  suppose 
there  is  something  for  every  day.  Well,  well,  and 
for  every  hour.  What,  no  orisons,  no  shrift,  no 
fast,  and  Lent  so  late  this  year?  Daughter,  this 
is  perilous.  But  I  must  love  you  all  through  it. 
Returning  were  as  dangerous  as  go  o'er.  /  am 
called  too,  but  only  to  a  domestic  lunch. 

Farewell  and  benedicite. 

Your  loving 

^  FRA.  FR.  CIST.  ^ 


1 886]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  39 

Tuesday  Morning,  July  20,  1886. 

CARA  MIA  PENITENTE  (Expressly  devised  to  match 
your  beginning)  :— 

What  a  clumsy  thing  a  man  is  altogether,  but 
most  of  all  unbeholjen,  as  the  airy  German  says 
when  he  writes  a  letter.  This  reflection  is  called 
forth  by  the  reading  of  your  light-touched  sketch  of 
the  dinner.  Men  are  all  Germans  :  it  is  of  no  use 
to  make  distinctions  among  the  flat-footed,  heavy- 
fisted  creatures.  There  is  a  Breton  bretonnant,  and 
a  Breton  pas  bretonnant,  but  a  man  is  a  man  for 
a'  that.  Well  may  you  say  that  you  expect  a  fat 
letter  from  one  of  them. 

It  was  expressly  stipulated  between  me  and  my 
self  that  at  any  time  this  summer  I  might  put  aside 
proof  and  copy  whenever  a  girl — (named  M.)  — 
wrote  me  a  letter,  whether  it  required  an  answer 
without  a  minute's  delay  or  not.  I  mean  to  neglect 
such  things  wantonly  and  peremptorily,  and  I  won't 
be  called  to  account,  whenever  the  occasion  alluded 
to  occurs  —  and  you  know  exactly  how  often  that 
is  likely  to  be.  If  I  do  not  resent  that  particular 
roll  which  lies  at  my  left  hand,  it  is  because  I  regard 
it  as  beneath  notice.  Want  to  be  corrected,  do 
you  ?  Why  don't  you  come  in  a  shape  that  admits  of 
no  betterment,  like  the  square  little  proofs  at  my 
right  hand?  "Proofs"  -but  I  am  not  going  to 
write  passages,  and  quibbles  and  quabbles,  and 
quibble  and  squabble  about  what  the  little  square 


40  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

sheets  precisely  prove.  This  letter  is  purely  un 
necessary  after  the  one  which  crossed  yours,  and 
should  therefore  be  filled  with  nothing  but  froth. 
"Menti  plusieurs  fois,"  after  "I  miss  you  very 
much !"  Come,  come, "  riddling  confession  finds  but 
riddling  shrift."  "  I  am  not  so  much  your  M.  as 
I  have  pretended  plusieurs  fois,  but  still  yours  more 
than  anybody's  M." 

Yes,  I  know  about  -  — ,  but  who  are  the  rest  of 
them?  It  is  not  confession  to  say  I  have  been 
telling  you  fibs ;  the  fibs  must  be  particularized.  I 
am  not  of  that  suspicious  kind  who  can  supply 
particulars  from  their  own  jealousies,  although  I 
may  be  now  and  then  incredulous.  I  know  very 
well  that  all  trivial  fond  records  are  to  be  wiped 
from  the  tablets  of  your  memory  as  soon  as  fate  is 
fulfilled,  but  how  about  the  interim?  What  does 
it  mean  to  be  in  one's  den,  "  consoled  by  a  faithful 
cigar"?  So  many  daggers  in  these  innocent  little 
sheets.  Nay,  not  so  much;  not  there.  Consola 
tion  from  a  cigar?  A  cigar  does  well  for  a  jaded 
man,  but  what  would  you  think  of  a  man  who,  miss 
ing  his  love  (supposing  a  case),  should  take  to  a 
cigar?  or  perhaps  a  bottle?  Misericordia !  I  have 
a  great  mind  to  turn  one  of  your  relations  —  to  be 

your  brother-in-law  —  poor  L !  —  and,  excuse 

me,  A ,  for  a  month,  or  two  months  —  till  work 

begins.  I  am  a  relation,  after  a  sort,  already.  Mis 
ericordia  di  me  :  how  glad  I  am  that  I  never  thought 


1 886]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  41 

of  that  before.  But  if  you  talk  of  dens  where  men 
console  themselves  with  cigars  you  will  drive  me 
into  making  the  very  uttermost  of  the  connection. 

Now,  my  poor  dearest,  hard-driven  M.,  much- 
relationed  member  of  society,  member  of  societies, 
is  this  the  way  in  which  your  confessor  and  consoler 
confesses  you?  No,  it  is  not  the  confessor  who 
says  the  last  words.  He  has  no  earthly  ties ;  he  has 
forsworn  them  for  the  very  purpose  of  qualifying 
himself.  I  fear  sometimes  that  you  will  wear  the 
frame  of  your  intense  soul  so  thin  that  he  that  runs 
may  read  your  heart.  .  .  . 

A  wretch  rings  my  bell  twice.  I  have  been  fear 
ing  invaders  since  Thursday  last,  but  none  of  a  bad 
kind  have  come.  Why  is  not  this  you  ?  The  den  is 
so  nice  a  place  for  a  talk,  dusty  as  it  is.  Another 
mercy,  some  woman  to  see  my  aunt.  Explain  your 
menteries.  I  cannot  have  you  hauled  about  by  a 
burning  chain.  Without  fibs  I  am  still  "  yours  more 
than  anybody's" 

*  FRA.  FRA.  ^ 

P.  S.  —  Just  this  minute  a  letter  from  a  very  ac 
complished  man  in  German  recalls  me  to  ballads. 
But  why  not?  Should  I  be  writing  to  any  other 
girl? 

September  17,   1886. 

All  the  long  time  since  I  last  wrote  to  you  has 
been  a  blank  as  far  as  any  interesting  thing  goes. 


42  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

I  should  be  quite  ashamed  to  tell  you  how  little 
progress  I  have  made.  If  I  could  score  a  good 
deal  as  done  I  would  not  say  anything  of  other 
lacks.  Days  seem  to  be  of  depreciated  value,  so 
little  do  they  fetch.  I  put  off  all  I  can  in  hot 
weather,  but  what  shall  I  do  when  I  am  congealed 
-as  I  sit  at  my  desk  and  still  don't  get  on?  Even 
glaciers  are  known  to  make  progress,  and  icebergs 
still  more.  To  be  sure,  I  had  to  go  to  Newport  to 
see  a  friend  who  is  not  well,  but  that  took  only  two 
days  —  yes,  and  ruined  one  before  and  one  after. 
To  be  sure,  I  expected  a  visit  from  a  young  English 
man  who  did  n't  come,  with  all  my  telegraphing  and 
writing.  To  be  sure,  my  family  came  home  and 
some  little  regard  was  due  them,  but  they  always 
allow  me  the  day-time,  and  I  do  not  work  in  the 
night  till  the  sun  sets  before  six.  Altogether  I  am 
as  inexcusable  —  as  —  as  —  as  if  I  had  stayed  in 
Stockbridge  or  gone  with  you  wherever  you  went. 
Could  I  say  worse  of  myself? 

But  where  did  you  go  and  where  are  you  now? 
Am  I  writing  to  a  Canadian  or  an  American? 
Lucky  that  you  do  not  know  what  a  dull  and  dole 
ful  fellow  is  writing  to  you.  I  shall  have  to  stop 
writing  lest  you  should  discover  me !  People  can  be 
discovered  without  writing.  If  anybody  desires  to 
discover  how  tedious  I  can  be,  correspondence  is 
solicited!  I  sometimes  think  that  I  should  not  be 
quite  so  leaden  were  only  my  task  reeling  off,  but  I 


1 886]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  43 

am  not  sure.    Be  prepared  for  the  worst,  dearest  M. 

At  Newport  I  saw  sea  and  houses  —  few  people. 
I  rang  your  Uncle  -  -'s  bell  and  saw  him.  I 
had  some  sensation  of  your  having  been  about,  and 
looked  round  the  garden  wistfully.  All  the  time 
I  was  weary  and  preoccupied.  We  used  to  have  a 
French  maid  who  asked  my  wife  once  whether  rope- 
dancers  required  to  have  their  legs  broken  when 
they  were  children.  She  had  heard  so.  When  asked 
why  this  should  be,  she  said,  "  It  would  perhaps 
make  them  more  degage !"  Come  now  and  break 
my  head  and  see  whether  the  operation  will  affect 
me  favorably. 

I  do  not  think  I  should  select  this  day  and  hour 
to  write  to  you.  I  dare  say  if  I  did  n't  remember 
having  written  to  you  on  the  iyth  of  September 
before,  you  told  me.  This  ryth  is  not  like  that  iyth. 
I  dare  say  I  wrote  you  a  gayer  letter.  But  now  I 
am  your  friend  forever,  forever  both  ways,  n'est  ce- 
pas!  For  when  one  loves,  one  thinks  there  never 
was  a  time  when  one  did  n't.  That  is  a  great 
mystery.  I  must  have  loved  you  then  in  '80 — '75  — 
'70 — '65.  Must  I  not?  If  I  had  time  I  would  try 
to  detect  that  thread  in  my  existence  all  these  years 
back.  .  .  . 

Thursday,  October  7,   1886. 

Here  you  have  your  little  book,  and  I  suppose 
it  never  would  have  been  reprinted  but  for  you. 


44  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

The  opening  verses  I  should  have  left  out  if  I 
could,  both  because  they  are  rather  too  private  for 
a  book x  which  was  to  have  a  third  edition,  and  be 
cause  they  are  not  good  verses ;  but  they  were  very 
deeply  felt  when  they  were  put  in.  For  the  selec 
tions  I  took  only  such  verses  as  utter  real  feelings 
and  have  been  felt  over  again  by  me.  Many  of  the 
pieces  were  twisted  in  with  my  very  fibres ;  some  of 
them  are  for  moods,  but  few.  You  will  keep  this 
little  book  till  long  after  I  have  vanished.  All  the 
essential  things  I  have  believed,  and  believe  still, 
and  some  of  the  aspirings  have  been  mine.  So  far 
it  may  rightly  recall  me,  and  a  little  further  as  com 
ing  from  one  who  loves  you  and  honors  you,  and 
has  laughed  a  good  deal  with  you  but  many  times 
also  cried  with  you.  But  I  need  not  explain  myself 
to  you,  dearest  M.,  or  invoke  your  faith  or  generous 
remembrance.  Being  what  you  are,  you  will  re 
member.  Thank  you  from  the  next  century. 

Your  faithful 

FRA  FRA. 

Wednesday,  November  10,  1886. 

This  may  be  called  the  first  leisure  moment 
(^l/2  P.M.)  since  Tuesday  the  2nd,  when  I  began  the 
campaign2  by  going  to  a  large  dinner  party  in  honor 
of  Dr.  Creighton  of  Emmanuel  College,  and  did 

1  An  anthology,  Poems  of  Religious  Sorrow,  Comfort,  Counsel,  and 
Aspiration,  made  by  Professor  Child  and  first  published  in  1863. 

a  This  passage  and  a  portion  of  the  following  letter  have  their  background 
of  fact  in  the  ceremonies  attending  the  celebration  of  the  25oth  anniversary 
of  Harvard  College  in  November,  1886. 


1 886]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  45 

n't  sleep  a  comfortable  wink  after  it:  it  seems  to 
me  that  I  have  not  slept  since,  till  last  night.  .  .  . 
Tonight  it  will  be  proper  to  go  to  a  lecture  by  Dr. 
Creighton,  after  which  I  may  return  to  my  usual 
style  of  life.  I  have  had  much  less  to  do  than  most 
of  my  colleagues  —  two  large  dinners  to  go  to,  one 
lunch  to  give.  I  have  had  James  Lowell  a  good  deal 
to  myself  or  shared  him  with  only  a  few,  and  that 
has  alleviated  the  tedious  pleasures  of  the  period. 
One  evening  I  was  with  J.  L.,  Godkin,  G.  Curtis, 
Howells,  Creighton,  and  Norton  —  a  bright  lot  of 
men  certainly!  .  .  .  Monday  was  a  very  brilliant 
day.  Tuesday  was  an  interesting  day,  and  we  had 
a  lovely  concert  besides,  but  it  was  all  fatiguing. 
Several  times  I  thought  I  would  interpose  a  little 
ease  by  writing  to  my  M.,  then  somebody  would 
come  in,  such  as  an  old  classmate,  and  the  letter 
had  to  be  abandoned.  .  .  . 

Saturday  Night,  November  14,  1886. 
ii  o'clock. 

...  The  first  very  bright  spot  that  attracts  my 
eyes  is  your  visit  to  Boston.  All  this,  while  I  ought 
to  be  celebrating  your  month,  celebrating  her  who, 
to  make  the  world  more  festive,  was  born  every  day 
of  November.  What  shall  I  do  about  it?  There  are 
no  roses.  How  wonderful  that  in  the  very  month 
when  there  are  no  roses  M.  should  be  sent  for  recom 
pense.  Not  so  bad  a  world.  I  am  already  quite 
aching  to  see  them  again.  .  .  . 


46  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1886 

This  week  I  have  been  as  earthly  as  any  pagan 
African.  The  publicity  wearies  me,  much  as  I 
shunned  it,  and  I  don't  remember  —  or  scarcely— 
having  had  a  thought  about  the  mud.  The  coming 
week  I  must  get  to  morning  prayers  and  hear  the 
choir  of  little  boys  chant  their  anthems,  and  try  to 
keep  my  head  and  heart  higher.  But  the  week  ends 
with  a  loving  thought  of  M.,  and  that  is  as  good 
as  the  boys'  chanting.  Benedictus  benedicat!  To 
New  York  quick.  I  love  you  always  tenderestly. 

^  FRA.  FRA.  ^ 

Oho!  P.S.  —  That  dinner  with  all  those  men 
was  dull.  .  .  .  They  were  matched  with  mere  chil 
dren —  good  children,  but  children  still.  It  is  not 
that  I  prefer  men's  dinners.  Heaven  forbid !  Could 
we  have  had  M.  placed  between  James  Lowell  and 
anybody,  not  too  far  for  me  to  see  her  —  L—  -  next 
to  Godkin  —  L—  -  next  to  Cr eighton  —  Mrs .  Whit 
man  next  to  —  Curtis  —  that  would  have  been  an 
occasion  for  250  years.  (I  was  next  to  Mrs.  Creigh- 
ton.)  I  see  that  you  thought  because  I  was  brought 
up  with  eleven  other  Cistercians  I  preferred  men. 
My  rule  forbids  me  to  associate  ordinarily  with 
women.  I  have  a  dispensation  because  I  have  made 
my  jubilee,  have  been  fifty  years  a  brother.  But 
I  do  not  prefer  men's  society.  I  find  a  club  tire 
some  if  I  go  often,  and  do  not  go  at  all.  Now, 
if  I  could  come  to  dine  with  you  tomorrow,  on 
two  smoked  herrings,  what  a  feast  it  would  be! 


1 887]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  47 

Never  suspect  me  of  being  a  mannish  man,  liking 
men's  unmixed  company.  I  don't  insist  even  on 
having  the  brightest  of  women  always.  I  like 
good  women,  sweet  women,  natural  women  —  they 
need  not  always  be  as  vivacious  as  our  L—  — ,  or 
as  ?  or  ? 

Sunday  Afternoon,  January  16,  1887. 

Of  course  your  faith  has  gone  to  bits,  for  it  is  a 
fortnight  and  a  day  since  I  wrote  you  a  word.  A 
very  blank  fortnight  it  has  been,  filled  up  with  work 
on  ballads,  continued  often  till  midnight.  I  have 
had  another  panic  about  not  living  to  see  the  end 
of  the  thing,  and  have  been  like  the  hermit  in  the 
desert  who  is  running  from  death.  The  only  way 
to  get  on  is  to  work  doggedly  through  dull  and 
pleasant  alike,  and  just  now  the  work  is  dull.  Then 
I  have  had  rheumatism  of  a  most  pervasive  descrip 
tion —  such  ankles  to  walk  with!  But  I  have  not 
walked  further  than  the  college.  Why  should  I  tell 
you  of  work  and  rheum? 

And  so,  since  I  see  nobody,  or  only  students  and 
my  household,  and  go  nowhere,  and  hear  comfort 
able  reports  about  your  family,  and  do  not  fear  that 
you  will  throw  me  over — I  keep  on  doggedly,  as  I 
said,  looking  forward  to  your  possible  appearance 
next  month,  to  pruning  of  roses  in  March,  to  seeing 
the  first  renewal  of  nature  shortly  after,  and  say 
nothing.  At  times  a  longing  for  spring  is  very 


48  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1887 

keen.  At  times  the  soft  clouds,  for  it  has  been  a 
beautiful  winter,  cheat  me  into  a  thought  that  it 
may  be  coming,  or  perhaps  you  may  be  coming. 
Your  roses,  too,  are  pleasant  to  think  of,  and  the 
more  work  I  do  now,  the  more  time  I  can  steal  by 
and  by  without  desperate  remorse.  For  all  the  time 
I  devote  to  love  and  roses  now  (such  a  pinny  pen 
this  is)  is  stolen.  When  I  was  young  I  never  hesi 
tated  to  give  all  the  hours  which  the  college  did 
not  directly  claim  to  flowers  and  maids.  I  ought 
to  have  had  you  then,  only  I  should  not  have  had 
you  now.  Then  I  would  write  two  letters  a  day 
about  nothing  —  to  one  maid,  I  mean  —  or  even  to 
a  man,  for  I  felt  that  ages  were  before  me.  Now 
I  am  cabined,  cribbed,  confined,  bound  down  to 
saucy  doubts  and  fears.  I  don't  want  to  say  what 
my  thoughts  are,  and  if  I  see  nobody  and  nobody 
writes  to  me,  except  to  beg,  or  to  answer  literary 
questions,  or  ask  them,  I  am  no  better  than  a  her 
mit.  ...  A  hermit  could  only  tell  you  of  lives  of 
saints  and  preach  austerities.  I  have  no  austerities 
to  recommend  to  my  M.,  and  prize  her  at  a  higher 
rate  than  any  of  the  saints  in  the  Legend.  .  .  . 

I  wish  we  could  live  a  thousand  years  on  this 
pleasant  earth,  under  this  bright  sky,  being  happy 
or  growing  happier  always.  Why  not  a  thousand 
here,  if  forever  elsewhere?  But  the  question  is  ir 
reverent  and  even  flippant.  Too  many  find  seventy, 
fifty,  thirty  years  too  much.  Only  may  we  have 


1 887]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  49 

love  where  we  go.       Ever,  dearest  maid,  thy  dear 
loving 

*  FKA.  FRA.  * 
(Dark) 


Thursday,  April,  1887. 

I  assure  you  that  the  gap  seemed  a  broad  one 
to  me,  my  own  dear  M.,  and  when  your  little  note 
came  this  morning  I  should  have  felt  like  a  male 
factor  (who,  however,  if  he  is  a  big  one  rarely  feels 
at  all  —  let  us  say,  as  a  reprobate  ought  to  feel)  had 
I  not  known  that  your  letter  had  been  anticipated 
or  crossed.  I  told  you  in  my  last  that  I  was  per 
fectly  well  :  that  means  for  me  no  gout  or  rheuma 
tism,  but  ought  to  mean  that  the  desire  for  study 
was  keen,  and  that  I  was  looking  very  sharp  after 
my  M.,  and  acting  like  my  natural  self.  I  am  quite 
cheerful  though  work  drags;  blessed  be  hope,  it 
must  be  the  hope,  of  seeing  my  dear  fellow-creatures 
in  the  garden  arrive.  They  have  pushed  up  their 
green  heads  before  this,  generally  always,  but  hold 
back  this  April  as  if  they  were  afraid.  Could  I  have 
arranged  this  Easter  holiday  as  I  would,  I  should 
have  pruned  roses  with  you  in  your  garden;  mine 
are  almost  all  pretty  well  cut  in,  and  I  have  some 
thorns  in  my  fingers  to  show  for  it.  It  would 
have  been  such  a  delight  to  go  over  your  garden 
with  you  and  prophesy  all  the  pleasure  that  you 
were  to  have  from  this  and  that. 


So  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1887 

All  this  about  myself  to  clear  the  way  to  you. 
You  are  almost  alone,  and  have  sorrows  of  various 
kinds  about  you,  and  are  working  hard,  with  no 
trees  to  turn  to,  and  parting  with  things  that  you 
have  grown  up  with.  If  a  Fra  Fra  did  not  try  to 
cheer  you  he  would  deserve  to  be  walled  up,  or 
disfrocked,  excommunicated,  and  handed  over  to 
the  temporal  arm.  But  what  in  the  world  can  a 
Fra  Fra  do  for  a  M.?  Preach  to  her?  Nay,  sing  a 
Mass  for  her?  That  would  be  something.  He 
ought  to  come  to  her,  though  he  might  catch  her 
for  once  in  a  deshabille  (elegant,  of  course),  devised 
in  Paris  expressly  for  demenagements  and  demant- 
elements,  with  a  divine  brush  for  a  fan,  exquisitely 
wrought  keys  hung  to  a  fascinating  belt,  and  such 
a  cap!  Do  go  straight  to  Kurz  after  one  of  your 
dustiest  experiences  and  let  me  see  the  real  and 
practical  woman,  which  is  one  part  of  your  many- 
sided  personality.  Still  to  be  neat,  still  to  be  drest 
as  always  waiting  for  a  guest,  and  never  have  no 
second  best !  Let's  see  you  in  a  fresh  French  print, 
made  for  a  dust,  [?]  no  train  ahint,  and  we  will 
say  there 's  something  in 't.  Well,  no  doubt  the  only 
reason  Fra  Fra  doesn't  see  M.  in  her  enchanting 
duster  is  because  he  doesn't  put  himself  in  a  con 
dition  so  to  do  ;  but  should  you  broom  him  out  if 
he  came?  .  .  . 

After  tea  I  am  to  read  "  Quentin  Durward "  to 
my  household;  that  is  an  appointment  for  every 
evening.  I  should  like  to  look  in  on  M.,  after  she 


1 887]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  51 

has  doffed  her  duster  (that  is  not  the  name  for  the 
costume,  but  I  have  not  Worth's  circular  to  con 
sult)  when  I  have  finished  my  reading  and  have 
a  little  outpouring.  How  long  must  this  last  ?  Why 
stay  till  May?  Why  not  have  all  done  in  a  week 
more  and  fly  to  the  country?  Foolish  questions 
since  M.  has  always  named  May  as  the  earliest 
date.  Dearest  M.,  you  shall  not  be  forgotten  till 
May  anyway.  I  kiss  the  tips  of  your  fingers  —  that 
is  of  the  demenagement  gauntlets. 
Farewell  for  a  little  while.  .  .  . 

Your  ever  most  affectionate 

^  FRA.  FRA.  ^ 

Tuesday,  5  April,  1887. 

I  wonder  whether  there  is  time  to  write  you  five 
words  before  tea?  I  have  been  out  pruning  roses 
until  near  sundown,  though  I  had  to  stand  in  snow 
or  mud  to  do  it,  and  have  come  in  with  a  predesti 
nate  scratched  face.  I  cannot  say  who  did  it — La 
Baronne  Prevost  is  too  old  a  friend  with  all  her 
stout  thorns.  And  of  course  I  have  lacerated  roses 
and  thorns  in  my  finger-ends.  In  all  of  which  I 
delight.  But  it  is  a  very  harsh  April  and  not  a  per 
ceptible  tint  in  the  grass.  All  the  morning  I  was 
housed  and  at  work  over  books.  I  earned  my  little 
delassement  with  the  roses.  They  bring  me  close 
to  you,  of  course,  though  yours  must  wait  a  fort 
night  longer  than  mine,  I  suppose. 

I  begin  a  week's  vacation  tomorrow.     Why  do  I 


52  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1887 

not  go  to  220  and  help  your  clearing?  I  am  as 
much  afraid  to  steal  from  my  tasks  as  if  I  were 
Epictetus  or  any  other  clerkly  slave.  It  has  been 
wearisome  to  me;  so  many  times  writing  to  Eng 
land  to  get  things  right  which  are  in  themselves  of 
the  least  utterable  consequence.  The  other  day, 
after  waiting  two  months  for  some  copies,  I  had  a 
grand  flare-up  of  Diamond  matches  on  my  table, 
which  ended  by  burning  up  some  of  the  stuff  just 
received  and  a  rarish  book  to  boot,  and  the  next 
day  I  found  that  the  copying  done  in  Oxford  was 
much  of  it  in  vain,  and  had  to  write  off  for  some 
thing  else.  This  kind  of  delay  has  happened  half 
a  dozen  times  or  more  during  these  three  months, 
and  therefore  I  am  weary  of  such  a  dragging  busi 
ness.  But  when  squills  and  crocuses  (not  circuses, 
though  I  dote  on  them  and  they  are  spring  pleas 
ures)  and  Spring  Beauty  come  (snow-drops  have 
been  trying  to  open  for  a  fortnight),  I  expect  to  cast 
my  slough  like  other  reptiles  and  to  snap  my  fingers 
at  books. 

You  gave  me  the  best  of  reasons  for  all  you 
were  doing — and  not  doing  —  and  you  hit  the 
fact  exactly  when  you  said,  Tell  me  how  you  are, 
that  is,  how  near  is  spring  with  you.  I  am  entirely 
well. 

I  ought  to  tell  you  how  I  went  to  breakfast  with 
J.  Lowell  the  other  day  and  was  persuaded  by  him 
to  stay  till  12.30,  and  then  went  out  to  dine  with 


1 887]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  53 

him  and  George  Curtis  the  same  day!  —  and  I  had 
been  out  to  dine  once  before  that  week ! !  Don't 
you  think  I  might  be  made  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  after  that,  vice  F.  Child  promoted? 
Surely  they  want  somebody  to  go  to  Cabinet  din 
ners.  Or  does  the  Secretary  attend  to  the  dinners 
and  the  Assistant  Secretary  to  the  work?  .  .  . 

I  don't  call  this  a  letter.  Tea  was  imminent 
when  I  began  and  I  have  felt  as  if  writing  a  postal 
card.  But  I  can  write  again  as  soon  as  the  sun  has 
cleared  the  remaining  ice  from  my  heart  and  the 
north  side  of  my  hedge. 

Farewell  for  a  trice. 

Your  ^  FRA.  FRA.  * 

Sunday  Afternoon,  April  24,  1887. 
.  .  .  What  are  you  doing  this  celestial  day? 
How  sad  that  you  should  be  in  a  great  city  when 
the  birds  and  green  grass  and  springing  plants  are 
calling  you  to  a  walk  towards  and  in  our  wood — 
our  pleasance  we  will  call  it  since  it  is  so  small.  I 
wish  Cambridge  were  the  natural  halt  between  you 
and  Washington.  In  fact  I  am  in  a  mood  for  nothing 
else  but  such  a  walk.  Books  (save  one)  are  re 
pulsive  to  me.  I  drop  my  work  any  half  an  hour 
to  go  out  and  see  if  another  adonis  is  springing  or 
a  meadow  rue  showing  its  claret-colored  head.  So 
false  are  fables  :  la  cigale  ayant  chante  tout  lyete, 
etc.  One  should  work  all  winter  to  be  ready  to 


54  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1887 

sing  all  summer,  and  sing  all  summer  to  be  able 
to  work  the  winter  through.  One  or  the  other  one 
must  do,  sing  or  work.  I  find  that  I  cannot  work 
if  I  go  out  under  the  pretence  of  just  looking  at  this 
or  that,  and  I  hoped  for  a  rain  yesterday  (not  very 
earnestly)  to  keep  me  indoors.  This  proves  that  it 
is  the  order  of  nature  that  there  should  be  a  set  of 
toilers  and  a  set  of  butterflies.  The  butterflies  are 
not  to  be  moralized ;  a  butterfly  cannot  work  with 
out  ceasing  to  be  itself.  Whatever  is,  is  right.  I 
do  not  belong  to  the  butterflies,  though  "  zwei  Seelen 
wohnen  ach!  in  dieser  Brust" 

I  ought  not  to  go  into  the  garden  again  for  a 
month.  But  I  saw  a  dandelion  today;  that  pleas 
ure  cannot  be  taken  from  me.  .  .  . 

How  came  you  to  have  time  to  make  me  my 
book-cover,  which  will  make  me  read  Daudet?  I 
never  saw  or  dreamed  of  a  thing  so  sumptuous 
before.  It  must  have  been  so  that  Rebecca  of  York 
read  romances  (if  she  ever  read  anything  but  the 
Talmud  and  medical  books).  To  me  it  savors 
altogether  of  the  Orient.  My  idea  is,  to  recline  on 
my  silken  aromatic  pillow  and  be  found  reading 
your  volume  when  company  is  expected.  I  have  had 
William  and  Sara  Darwin  to  dinner  today  and 
lost  an  opportunity.  I  am  too  much  impromptu, 
I  ought  to  live  with  more  prevision  and  art. 
Nessun  maggior  piacer  che  il  possedere  cosa  fab- 
brie  at  a  da  mano  diletta;  see  Dante.  I  am  always 


1887]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  55 

charmed  when  my  M.   shows  her  skill  with  the 
needle,  because  that  is  a  womanly  grace.  .  .  . 

I  wish  I  had  something  entertaining  to  communi 
cate.  But  I  see  almost  nobody.  If  you  were  here 
I  could  show  you  a  letter  from  a  lady  by  the  title 
and  name  of  the  Countess  Evelina  Martinengo- 
Cesaresco,  which  came  this  morning.  She  is  mad 
about  popular  ballads,  like  your  F.  F.  That  's  the 
occasion.  She  sent  me  a  book  of  her  father's  — and 
who  is  her  father?  Why,  an  English  dean,  though 
she  lives  on  the  Lago  di  Garda.  I  have  nothing  to 
send  her  but  "The  Child  of  Bristow" —  everlasting 
thing.  She  writes  very  prettily  about  delicate 
tastes  "which  constitute  a  little  religion  of  which 
the  essence  is  rather  inclusive  than  proselytizing" 
—  meaning  just  now  love  of  popular  poetry.  Love 
of  roses  is  another  religion  —  she  doesn't  say  that 
she  professes  that.  Do  you  mean  to  be  shut  out  of 
the  other  superstitions  ?  I  have  very  few  :  love  of 
women,  roses  (including  apple-blossoms),  popular 
poetry,  Shakspere,  my  friends,  wild  flowers,  trees, 
violin  music,  voilal  I  cannot  have  the  Countess 
shutting  you  out  from  anything  that  I  like,  though 
I  dare  say  you  like  things  which  I  do  not  care  for, 
but  of  the  second  grade.  It  is  only  important  (if 
possible)  that  we  should  agree  in  our  highest  tastes. 
You  have  a  taste  for  women,  roses,  apple-blossoms, 
etc.  Perhaps  you  have  a  taste  for  china.  I  have 
not.  Set  that  off  against  cigars.  .  .  . 


S6  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1887 

Sunday  Afternoon,  28  August,  1887. 

.  .  .  Yesterday  I  had  an  application  from  the 
Editor  of  the  Fortnightly  Review  to  furnish  him 
(as  a  lot  of  folks  have  been  doing)  "with  the  pas 
sage  in  all  poetry  which  seems  to  him  the  finest,  and 
also  the  one  passage  in  prose  which  seems  best." 
He  means  to  make  an  anthology  of  such  things. 
Why  does  n't  he  ask  me  (of  the  poetry)  which  rose 
is  best?  Which  thing  in  M.  is  best?  I  don't  think 
I  shall  undertake  to  answer  so  very  foolish  a  ques 
tion;  but  I  am  told  that  many  people  in  England 
have  —  your  Matthew  perhaps.  Do  you  want  to 
answer  for  me  —  that  is,  what  /  think  best? 

Then  I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  really  well 
and  much  amused  to  hear  that  you  are  aging  (or 
age-ing).  Why  not  overtake  me?  I  would  go  on 
as  slowly  as  I  could.  .  .  . 

Friday,  2  December,  1887. 

While  you  were  here  Sunday  it  seemed  quite  im 
perative  that  I  should  write  you  that  very  day,  to 
tell  you  how  much  improved  Cambridge  was ;  but 
I  reflected  that  you  were  to  be  gone  from  Garden 
Street  all  day  long,  so  that  I  could  not  use  those 
most  necessary  words  till  toward  evening.  But  it 
was  my  weird,  my  fate,  to  have  five  people  to  dine, 
and  after  that,  with  a  short  break,  company  till  10 
o'clock,  and  not  even  a  little  note  went  to  you,  either 
to  Garden  Street  or  to  Orange,  which  afterwards 


i88y]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  57 

seemed  to  me  better,  because  I  should  be  wel 
coming  you  home.  And  yet  people  wonder  that  I 
do  not  like  the  flux  of  company! 

I  watched  over  you,  and  felt  pretty  sure  that  you 
would  be  happy  when  the  sun  came  out  bright.  I 
hope  you  went  home  refreshed  enough  to  repay  you 
for  five  hundred  miles  travelled.  My  week  was 
very  much  happier.  I  stormed  a  little  just  while 
I  was  dressing  to  go  to  Boston  to  dine  on  Monday  : 
that  was  a  very  different  thing  from  half  an  hour's 
talk  and  ten  minutes  walk  with  M.  But  when  I 
was  once  in  the  pretty  house  and  saw  Dr.  Holmes 
and  only  three  other  guests  besides  us,  I  immedi 
ately  became  so  serene  an  impostor  that  my  wife 
held  up  her  hands.  The  doctor  and  I  sat  together, 
and  I  could  see  that  he  was  glad  to  see  me  again. 
He  said  that  he  did  not  meet  "  men  of  books  "  very 
much  of  late,  and  he  liked  to  talk  about  this  poet 
and  that.  A  dinner-party  for  six  or  seven  (the 
hosts  being  in  formal  mourning,  which  keeps  the 
tone  agreeably  low,  and  the  movement  allegro,  ma 
non  troppo]  would  certainly  be  a  good  thing  twice 
a  week  were  I  sufficiently  civilized,  and  I  think  I 
could  submit  to  be  civilized  enough  if  I  could  go 
without  heart-eating  cares.  Why,  I  certainly  be 
haved  myself  as  though  there  were  no  such  thing 
as  either  behavior  or  cares  for  two  hours  and  forty- 
five  minutes.  But  I  should  have  to  be  a  little  more 
civilized  :  a  properly  civilized  person  can  go  to  sleep 


58  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1887 

on  coming  home,  but  I  had  to  sit  up  till  I  to  get 
myself  sleepy  enough.  And  this  without  the  slight 
est  excitement.  Think  what  it  would  have  been  if 
I  had  met  my  M.  for  the  first,  second,  third  or 
fourth  time.  Think  what  it  used  to  be  when  I  was 
a  youngling  and  met  a  nice  girl  at  a  modest  Cam 
bridge  party!  I  met  nobody  that  I  had  not  met 
before,  and  a  veteran  author,  though  most  agreeable 
company  (for  the  Doctor  is  thoroughly  amiable) 
would  not  rob  me  of  the  hour  from  12  to  i.  But 
I  would  take  a  watching  till  3  (which  used  to  be 
my  way)  if  I  could  be  young  enough  to  be  asked 
to  meet  Miss .  .  .  . 

CAMBRIDGE,  Saturday,  December  10,  1887. 

Ought  I  to  be  writing  to  you  in  German?  Per 
haps  you  think  only  in  German  now,  for  I  can  see 
that  you  will  be  very  intense  about  it.  But  German 
is  no  language  to  write  anything  in  but  Wissen- 
schaft,  and  at  this  moment  I  am  not  writing  Wis- 
senschaft.  .  .  . 

We  are  threatened  with  the  loss  of  our  Dr.  Asa 
Gray,1  a  man  universally  liked  and  the  most  dis 
tinguished  man  that  we  now  have  here.  He  had  a 
stroke  of  paralysis,  while  in  full  health,  and  after 
a  delightful  summer  in  Europe.  We  were  told 
again  and  again  that  there  was  no  hope,  but  yes- 

1  Fisher   Professor  of  Natural   History   in   Harvard   College,   who   died 
January  30,  1888. 


1 887]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  59 

terday  the  report  changed  and  it  was  said  that  he 
might  still  have  several  years  of  comfortable  life. 
He  is  78  and  has  been  very  happy.  He  could  not 
wish  to  live  on  with  any  impairment  of  his  faculties. 
My  hopes  for  him  will  turn  upon  that  issue. 

Dr.  Gray  was  a  much-esteemed  friend  of  Charles 
Darwin's  :  I  did  not  know  how  much  till  I  began 
to  read  the  new  Life  (which  William  Darwin  kindly 
sent  me) .  You  must  borrow  the  first  volume  and 
read  the  two  chapters  of  personal  history,  an 
autobi.,  the  others  by  Frank  Darwin.  His  life  is 
quite  unique  for  modern  times.  But  a  three-volume 
book,  mostly  scientific,  is  not  to  be  rashly  bought. 
When  Charles  said  to  his  brother  (I  think),  "You 
must  read  my  '  Descent,' "  it  was  answered,  "  Read 
it?  I  had  almost  as  lief  buy  it."  And  you  may 
say,  "Buy  it?  I  could  almost  as  soon  read  it." 
Darwin  is  in  good  print,  and  I  dropped  for  it  Mrs. 
Gaskell's  "Wives  and  Daughters,"  in  very  bad 
print,  which  made  my  good  eyes  smart.  I  find  my 
self  quite  of  Mr.  C.  D.'s  mind  about  novels,  only 
I  could  not  read  mediocre  ones  :  namely,  that  novels 
must  end  happily,  and  have  one  character  that  one 
can  admire,  by  preference  a  pretty  woman.  In 
"  Wives  and  Daughters "  there  are  two  girls,  not 
quite  old  enough  for  one  to  care  passionately  for, 
.  .  .  but  I  like  them  both  and  have  forgotten 
troubles  over  them.  Though  Darwin  had  so  en 
viable  a  life  in  many  respects  (bating  forty  years 


60  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1888 

of  invalidism  or  not)  his  exclusive  devotion  to  one 
line  of  thought  destroyed  his  sensibility  to  poetry; 
he  was  so  far  paralyzed.  We  cannot  afford  to  have 
many  such  great  men,  loving  and  lovable  as  he  was. 
When  the  charm  of  poetry  goes,  it  seems  to  me  best 
not  to  stay.  If  the  world  is  nothing  but  Biology 
and  Geology,  let  's  get  quickly  to  some  place  which 
is  more  than  that.  What  place?  Why,  Orange, 
Stockbridge,  Cambridge  even.  But  I  ought  not  to 
say  that  C.  D.'s  world  was  all  Biology  and  Geology, 
for  the  affections  were  still  half  his  world.  I  do 
not  find  that  he  had  any  M.  to  write  letters  to,  and 
I  notice  the  same  want  in  many  biographies.  This 
is  a  sad  defect.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  begin  an  auto 
biography  to  show  what  great  gaps  there  have  been 
in  such  lives.  And  people  will  say — All  chaff,  my 
dear,  his  autobiography,  except  that,  strange  to  say, 
he  was  on  really  intimate  terms,  quite  intimate  with 

one  of  the est  girls,  hidden  under  the  name  of 

M.,  etc.,  etc. 

Now  for  my  postman. 

Benedicite.     Your  most  loving 

*  FRA.  FRA.  * 

Saturday  Afternoon,  n  February,  1888. 
If  I  have  not  written  to  you  until  this  last  day  of 
the  week,  you  know  of  course  that  I  did  not  wish  to 
share  you  with  Wagner.  How  much  is  left  of  you 
after  the  trilogy?  If  now  you  want  to  get  the 
sound  of  his  everlasting  recitation  out  of  your  ears, 


i888]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  61 

come  on  here  the  2ist  and  go  to  hear  Cherubim's 
Requiem  Mass  in  the  Cathedral.  That  would  be 
something  that  you  could  never  forget,  whereas 
Wagner  is  something  which  you  could  never  remem 
ber.  It  is  a  wonder  to  me  that  the  singers  can 
retain  the  music.  I  think  they  are  prompted  every 
bar  or  two,  but  no  more  about  that.  I  will  let 
Wagner  alone  since  he  lets  me  alone.  The  Cheru- 
bini  Mass  will  take  you  out  of  and  above  the  con 
fusion,  which  you  have  been  immersed  in.  Do  you 
think  that  a  Cistercian  brother  could  smile  on  such 
pagan  music?  Better  look  out  for  a  good  penance 
when  you  go  to  confession.  Telling  me  that  you 
are  going  is  not  confession,  neither  is  telling  me  that 
you  were  there,  in  a  cursory  way.  Well,  you  were 

not  at  the ,  as  I  supposed  yesterday.     I  was  not 

at  a  dinner  given  by  the  Tavern  Club  to  George 
Curtis,  though  a  seat  was  reserved  for  me.  G.  C. 
and  James  Lowell  have  been  here  three  days.  Not 
a  few  long  sessions  have  I  had  with  J.  L.  who  was 
in  the  next  house,  and  one  with  him  and  G.  C. 
And  one  evening  I  dined  with  Lowell  over  the  way 
in  a  simple  fashion,  en  frac,  but  not  grande  toilette, 
because  there  was  a  party  before  him  which  I  had 
declined  in  abstinence  of  mind,  most  easy  to  prac 
tise. 

I  have  had  a  good  week.  It  is  a  lovely  snowy  day, 
just  the  day  to  walk  with  you  and  verify  your  pho 
tograph,  but,  poor  thing,  how  could  you  walk  after 


62  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1888 

three  operas  in  a  week  and  those  Wagner's?  .  .  . 

Spring  is  here  upon  us.  I  suppose  there  may  be 
primroses  out  in  England  by  this  time. 

Praying  that  my  M.  may  be  well,  and  loving  her 
through  all  the  Trilogy  and  heathenry,  I  am  her 
loving 

^  FRA  FRA.  ^ 


February,  '88.  Friday  Afternoon. 
Nay,  nay,  my  very  giddy  M.,  do  not  ask  me  to 
go  to  the  trilogy  —  Nibelungen,  nie  gelungen!  Ask 
me  to  go  to  La  Somnambula  when  I  can  look  into 
your  eyes  and  say,  ai  miei  sensi  io  credo  append,  tu 
m'assicuri!  and  we  can  both  cry  at  non  pensiero. 
I  am  lost  in  admiration  of  your  energy,  however, 
dear  creature.  I  know  all  about  the  twilight  of  the 
gods  :  setting  it  to  music  is  above  Wagner.  It  is 

when  I  walk  through  the  grove  with  you  from  L 

to  I ,  nothing  murky  and  uncanny.     And  there 

is  a  noon-tide  of  the  gods  :  when  you  have  told  me 
that  you  are  coming  up  to  L .  ...  I  do  not  re 
quire  Wagner.  He  may  be  very  well  —  il  cor  che 
audito  di  esca  d'a-m-e,  di  esca  migliore  bisogna  non 
ha  —  bisogna  non  ha  —  b-i-s-o-g-n-a  NON  HA!  Or 
again,  I  would  go  with  you  to  a  Pontifical  Mass  at 
St.  Peter's  (as  a  friend  wrote  me  she  did  at  the  jubi 
lee.  Baron  Schonberg  got  her  a  place,  and  he 
would  have  got  places  for  us),  driving  to  the  church 
by  moonlight,  at  6  in  the  morning  —  the  church  all 


1 888]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  63 

dark  for  some  time  —  and  the  daylight  approaching 
gradually,  and  a  burst  of  golden  rays  lighting  up  the 
Holy  Father  at  the  altar.  That  would  be  a  delight, 
to  the  taste  of  both  of  us.  (Would  they  let  us  sit  to 
gether  at  St.  P.'s?)  You  are  a  regular  worldling, 
but  you  have  a  deep  heart  and  a  tender.  You  would 
after  all  like  the  mass,  like  such  gotterdammerungen 
better  than  the  opera.  .  .  . 

Your  letter  came  on  my  birthday;  no  letter  of 
yours  ever  came  on  that  day  before.  It  had  the 
effect  of  making  me  not  a  year  older,  which  is  not 
necessary,  though  discretion  be  a  plant  of  slow 
growth,  but  say,  five  years  younger.  Much  love 
was  shown  me  that  day.  The  dearest  old  friend, 
to  whom  I  owe  at  least  as  much  as  to  any  man  liv 
ing, —  80  years  old, —  came  to  see  me,  and  put  out 
his  cheek  to  be  kissed  —  well,  not  exactly  like  a  girl. 
.  .  .  He  staid  an  hour  with  me  and  left  me  almost 
happy.  I  was  very  grateful  when  I  went  to  bed  — 
and  before.  Roses  and  violets  are  still  perfuming 
and  glorifying  this  den,  and  out  of  doors  the  sky  is 
as  beautiful  as  summer.  The  trees  are  all  sunny 
a-top,  and  seem  to  be  budding.  Your  little  flower 
is  in  my  left  pocket  —  yes,  there  it  is.  I  may  be 
excused  for  looking  at  it,  notwithstanding  this  new 
stone  on  my  cairn,  for  yesterday  (rheumatic  as  Neb 
uchadnezzar),  while  I  was  in  the  library,  a  gradu 
ate  of  thirty-seven  years  ago  hailed  me  with  "Why, 
you  don't  look  a  year  older  than  !"  This 


64  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1888 

happens,  or  has  happened  to  me,  and  I  used  once 
to  be  flattered;  but  now  I  have  to  say,  —  within, 
it  is  not  quite  so.  My  trouble  is  that  I  do  not  feel 
younger  than  I  look,  and  it  is  not  so  pleasant  to 
look  (if  I  do)  younger  than  I  feel.  But  I  avail  my 
self  of  my  friends'  want  of  insight  to  write  a  very 
young  letter  to  you.  For  what  does  it  matter?  .  .  . 

I  will  take  these  frivolous  pages  right  to  the  letter 
box  that  they  may  reach  you  on  Saturday.  .  .  . 

Your  far  from  stern 

^  FRA  FRA.  >&  CISTERCIENSIS. 

April  12,  1888. 

...  I  am  writing  to  express  my  pleasure  at  the 
pleasure  in  prospect  for  you.  At  first  I  thought  you 
were  about  to  say  that  you  would  sail  for  Europe 
with  J[ames]  R[ussell]  L[owell]  on  Saturday  the 
2  ist,  which  I  think  is  his  day.  But  it  is  better  that 
you  are  to  dine  with  him  on  the  I4th.  I  am  divided 
in  my  mind  whether  to  wish  to  be  there  or  not. 
First,  I  wish  you  to  sit  next  to  J.  L.  —  or  to  put 
things  right,  —  men  always  in  their  inferiority, — 
that  he  may  sit  next  to  you;  in  fact,  have  the  honor 
of  taking  you  in.  But,  oh,  Lord,  that  cannot  be! 
I  have  forgotten  the  hostess.  What  a  confusion  am 
I  capable  of  making  in  the  best  established  conven 
tions  when  a  dinner  takes  me.  No  matter,  I  wish 
that  J.  L.  may  not  be  tired,  and  may  be  more  cheer 
ful  than  he  was  when  last  here.  Secondly,  you 


i888]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  65 

know  it  has  been  a  wish  of  mine  to  see  how  you 
appear  at  a  fashionable  dinner  (this  will  be  such,  I 
hope?)  when  no  such  folk  as  confessors  are  by. 
That  is  a  reason  for  my  not  being  a  guest.  But 
could  I  not  offer  myself  as  a  waiter?  Perhaps  I 
should  not  make  a  handy  waiter,  but  at  least  I 
would  not  spill  anything  on  your  gown.  I  should 
even  like  to  see  your  best  gown,  or  one  of  them. 
And  will  you  not  need  to  have  me  take  you  back 
to  Orange,  about  n  P.M.?  since  it  is  of  a  Saturday, 
your  dinner.  Well,  dear,  remember  all  the  nice 
things  which  you  say  and  tell  me  of  them.  I  con 
sider  my  M.  good  company  for  any  poet  any  day, 
so  she  need  not  make  the  least  effort,  and  I  don't 
think  she  would ;  it  is  enough  for  her  to  speak  right 
on.  But  if  she  has  a  way  with  fashionable  people 
(J.  L.  is  not  fashionable  people),  a  New  York  way 
different  from  her  Stockb ridge  way,  —  then  I  am 
sure  it  will  be  charming.  I  want  to  know  exactly 
what  it  is.  I  don't  know  whether  I  have  more  than 
one  way  or  not.  I  have  often  suspected  that  I  had, 
that  I  should  talk  differently  in  different  societies. 
But  why  am  I  bringing  myself  in?  After  all,  I 
think  the  principal  difference  is  that  I  should  some 
times  be  only  duller  or  silenter  than  at  others.  .  .  . 

By  yesterday's  newspaper  I  perceive  that  our 
Matthew  Arnold  has  been  writing  about  Americans 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century.  It  is  good  for  him  that 
he  perceived  the  charm  of  American  women;  had 


66  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1888 

he  failed  there  I  should  have  had  to  give  M.  A.  up. 
He  may  think  as  he  will  of  our  institutions,  our 
newspapers,  our  climate,  our  men  ;  but  if  he  were 
blind  to  our  women's  loveliness  I  should  distrust 
his  taste  in  everything.  Of  course  he  would  prac 
tise  reserve  on  this  subject.  ...  He  recognizes  what 
I  always  thought  must  be  the  damper  and  the 
crusher  for  English  women:  their  consciousness  of 
a  stratum  above  them.  (Grace  Norton  told  me  of 
an  American  woman  who  wanted  a  window  opened 
in  a  hot  room ;  her  English  friend  said,  You  forget 
that  the  Countess  -  -  is  present,  and  that  no  one 
would  venture  to  express  such  a  wish  but  her!!) 
I  must  look  up  Matthew  and  see  what  trace  of  you 
I  find  in  his  article.  .  .  . 

June  13,  1888.    [?] 

.  .  .  What  a  tale  you  tell!  I  myself  have  been 
very  unhappy  because  a  part  of  my  roses  have  done 
badly,  but  I  have  many  buds,  and  today  they  are 
out,  I  may  say,  by  thousands.  I  have  not  had 
time  to  attend  to  them  properly,  and  worse  still 
have  not  had  legs.  My  printers  are  on  my  heels, 
and  rheumatism  has  been  in  my  knees.  Insects  are 
not  very  bad  here,  though  worse  than  anywhere 
out  of  Massachusetts.  The  cold  weather  has  been 
unfavorable,  and  some  which  have  always  done  well 
by  me  have  been  blighted  dreadfully.  I  have  asked 
my  dear  little  Hoopers  to  come  and  see  them  this 


1 888]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  67 

afternoon,  and  have  promised  roses  to  all  my  pad 
dies  who  will  line  my  fence,  in  two  or  three  or  four 
or  five  relays,  because  there  are  so  many  roses  that 
it  is  wicked  not  to  give  them  to  the  youngsters.  But 
I  do  not  know  how  to  get  the  time.  Oh !  that  you 
could  but  look  in! 

After  many  years'  experience  I  think  there  is 
nothing  more  perfect  than  Marie  Baumann.  Fran- 
gois  Michelon  is  not  going  to  do  well ;  he  pines  like 
a  delicate  girl.  He!  It  should  be  Frangoise. 

I  am  just  now  kept  with  very  sharp  nerves  by  the 
necessity  of  printing  up  my  book  which  ought  to  be 
done  leisurely.  I  have  the  literature  of  the  past 
two  or  three  years  to  run  through,  but  must  print 
very  soon,  and  a  German  who  is  to  help  me  with 
Slavic  things  does  not  write  what  he  will  do. 

Indeed,  I  wish  I  were  with  you  and  sweet  J— 
(to  whom  my  duties  flavored  with  sweet  affection)  : 
-my  love  to  Vladimir.1  I  have  long  felt  as  if  the 
other  horse  had  kicked  my  knees ;  but  I  could  go 
on  them  now  these  last  two  days  if  the  adequate 
occasion  came  up.  What  is  an  adequate  occasion 
to  a  Fra  Fra  ?  But  perhaps  if  you  and  J—  —  were 
here  I  might  need  them ;  this  too  requires  worship ; 
at  least  calls  for  humility.  It  is  a  great  comfort 
to  be  able  to  go  on  one's  knees,  on  occasion  or  not. 
What  it  has  cost  me  to  pick  up  pins,  and  I  cannot 
a-bear  them  on  floors !  The  process  has  been  thus : 

*A  saddle-horse. 


68  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1888 


"  What  it  has  cost  me  to  pick  up  pins''' 

I  suppose  that  you  are  altogether  not  unhappy 

since  J is  there.     I  do  not  know  when  I  am 

coming,  dear.  I  should  like  to  spend  the  whole 
month  of  August  with  you  somewhere ;  how  young  I 
should  be  at  the  end.  .  .  . 

June  17,  1888. 

.  .  .  The  roses  so  far  are  somewhat  disappoint 
ing.  A  cold  June,  after  a  warm  May,  seems  to  have 
affected  the  color  of  the  light  roses  —  they  are  too 
red.  The  dark  ones  are  well  enough.  I  begin  to 
think  that  I  ought  not  to  continue  the  struggle  with 
Nature  and  Society,  but  own  myself  beaten.  Why 
was  I  not  content  with  two  lilacs,  two  Deutzias 
and  purple  perennial  phloxes  (which  kill  me  as  sure 
as  a  cockatrice,  the  purple  phloxes;  yet  the  peas 
ants  of  Berkshire  delight  in  them)  ?  I  should  have 
M.  to  admire,  and  she  never  crosses  and  irks  and 
disappoints.  The  question  now  arises,  I  know, 
whether  if  I  had  been  the  man  to  endure  purple 


1 888]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  69 

phloxes  I  should  have  known,  even  as  imperfectly 
as  I  do,  how  to  appreciate  a  M.  A  riddlesome 
world.  What  say  you  to  making  the  best  of  it? 
Narrow  limits  of  a  base  content?  But  I  must  own 
that  this  wish  for  perfection  may  breed  an  angry  re 
sentment  against  imperfection  which  is  all  but  blas 
phemous  (not  in  you  but  in  me).  Suppose  that 
nature  says,  you  may  have  roses,  under  these  condi 
tions,  of  fighting  the  insect  kingdom,  the  variable 
weather,  the  drought  and  the  dust;  what  say  you? 
Will  you  take  my  terms  ?  Or  will  you  have  cabbages, 
when  even  cabbages  shall  require  struggles  too?  I 
feel  rebuked  when  nature  talks  so.  But  why  should 
she  make  such  lovely  things  the  prey  of  circum 
stances,  of  foul  creatures,  of  capricious  skies  ?  You 
see  I  have  not  got  beyond  the  alphabet  of  life  yet. 

Now  I  must  prepare  for  lunch,  first  to  Boston, 
then  to  West  Roxbury,  an  hour  and  a  half  to  go, 
and  as  much  to  come.  ...  I  hope  you  have  more 
peace  with  your  garden.  Mary  Baumann  must 
have  revealed  herself  by  this  time. 

August  16,  1888. 

You  are  very  far  off  in  time  and  space,  my  be 
loved  M.  ...  It  would  be  ridiculous  were  I  to  tell 
you  how  days  go  here.  One  is  exactly  like  the 
other  and  the  other  is  of  the  simplest  pattern.  In 
my  den  or  study  (for  I  have  a  bright  new  yellow 
floor)  till  6l/>  P.M.,  going  out  a  few  minutes  for  a 


70  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1889 

dinner  of  which  I  have  no  need.  Perhaps  I  spend 
five  minutes  in  the  garden  after  breakfast.  There 
are  a  great  many  roses  fair  to  see  from  a  distance, 
but  there  is  mildew  and  little  that  one  could  gather. 
I  don't  care  for  them ;  none  of  them  can  move  my 
heart.  ...  At  6l/2  I  run  in  to  Grace  Norton  for 
half  an  hour  and  have  nothing  to  tell  her,  for  we 
have  talked  the  world  out  in  these  past  half  dozen 
years.  ...  I  have  interruptions  from  bores  now  and 
then,  but  this  is  the  general  history.  My  only 
event  has  been  a  letter  from  an  old  pupil  of  40 
years  ago,  telling  me  that  he  had  had  a  dim  daguer 
reotype  which  I  had  given  him,  enlarged  and  copied 
in  photograph,  and  if  the  copy  he  sends  calls  up 
half  the  pleasant  memories  which  it  does  with  him, 
etc.—  This  was  a  very  bright  and  handsome  boy 
whom  I  loved  passionately — loved  like  an  aunt! 
He  has  not  had  the  reputation  of  a  tender  heart,  and 
all  the  more  grateful  to  me  was  a  pleasant  expres 
sion  after  two-score  years.  You  will  be  amused 
with  the  result  of  the  photography.  .  .  . 

25  February,  1889. 

I  am  writing  to  you  in  a  great  coat,  with  my 
jockey-cap  on  —  you  will  perceive  that  a  jockey-cap 
must  needs  be  part  of  my  professional  attire.  The 
reason  is  that  I  do  not  find  it  easy  to  keep  warm 
enough,  for  on  Saturday  I  went  to  a  funeral  and 
caught  a  dangerous  cold,  and  yesterday  I  was  fear- 


1889]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  71 

ing  pneumonia,  fearing,  but  knowing  nothing  about 
the  matter;  but  everything  inside  my  chest  was 
burning  with  fever  and  I  was  coughing  my  lungs 
out. 

The  funeral  was  that  of  my  dear  Harry  Whitney.1 
You  did  not  know  him  I  suppose  —  a  classmate  of 
mine,  friend  of  forty  years,  and  such  a  kind  friend. 
He  died  upon  a  sudden  attack,  after  two  days.  One 
funeral  often  leads  to  another,  and  the  day  being 
very  cold  and  windy,  I  went  only  to  King's  Chapel. 
It  is  ridiculous  that  anyone  should  be  so  sensitive, 
but  a  trifling  wind  at  the  top  of  my  head  has  sev 
eral  times  given  me  a  most  extravagant  cold.  So 
all  yesterday  I  did  next  to  nothing,  and  all  today 
I  have  written  only  a  few  letters.  The  world  seems 
very  queer:  much  as  if  I  were  not  of  it,  not  at  all 
real.  .  .  . 

I  was  looking  forward  to  beginning  the  rose-sea 
son  in  a  week  or  two.  The  cold  does  not  threaten 
to  last  long,  but  my  lamentable  susceptibilities  may. 
Yesterday  I  went  through  with  all  the  worst  con 
sequences  in  detail.  "You  will  have  pneumonia, 
from  which  few  people  that  are  well  on  in  years 
recover."  That  being  the  starting-point,  I  en 
deavored  to  arrange  my  affairs.  Everybody  was 
going  to  hear  the  Manzoni  requiem  in  the  evening, 
and  as  the  day  had  been  long  I  meant  to  go  to  bed 
about  8  o'clock.  But  how  to  go  to  bed  while  any- 

1  Henry  Austin  Whitney,  Harvard,  1846. 


72  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1889 

body  was  out  of  the  house?  I  have  always  sat  up 
till  all  my  sheep  were  inside  the  fold,  seen  to  all 
fires,  doors,  and  windows.  Will  the  time  come  when 
I  shall  have  to  delegate  the  shepherd's  place?  I 
did  delegate  it  last  night  and  all  went  very  well. 
Even  the  night  was  not  quite  so  long  as  the  day. 

This  is  or  was  such  a  beautiful  day  to  work  in, 
and  I  had  it  all  to  myself.  What  is  the  use  if 
one  can't  turn  a  bright  day  to  account?  And  this 
evening  I  shall  not  be  able  to  read  aloud  to  the 
family  —  a  strange  displacement  of  everything.  But 
perhaps  tomorrow  the  world  will  begin  to  seem 
natural  again.  It  is  natural,  I  must  tell  you,  when 
small  things  appear  of  consequence,  as  for  instance, 
whether  I  have  spelled  an  old  word  with  a  final  e  or 
not,  whether  I  have  blotted  my  sheet  as  above.  But 
now,  today,  only  large  things  are  worth  minding,  as 
the  happiness  of  friends,  the  safety  of  the  state,  the 
condition  of  the  dead ;  among  the  first,  the  happi 
ness  of  my  M.,  which  under  no  circumstances  not 
extinguishing  consciousness  can  be  anything  but  a 
thing  of  the  first  concern. 

Now  shall  I  pull  off  my  great  coat  and  sit  by  the 
fire  ?  It  would  be  a  good  time  to  have  you  here.  I 
should  like  a  little  talk.  .  .  . 

Wednesday,  23rd  October,  1889,  6  P.M. 
...  I  found  J[ames]  L[owell]  downstairs,  and 
he  staid  below  all  the  afternoon.    He  looked  hag- 


1 889]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  73 

gard,  I  must  own.  .  .  .  There  are  two  comfortable 
signs  of  his  mending:  he  had  come  back  to  a  pipe 
and  he  liked  to  talk  of  old  Boston.  How  he,  being 
a  Cambridge  boy,  should  know  the  wharves,  as  I, 
born  close  to  salt  water,  I  don't  know.  I  found 
that  he  used  to  board  the  East  Indiamen  (for  we 
had  ships  in  plenty  then)  and  they  would  give  him 
rattans  and  fishing-poles  (bamboos).  But  I  thought 
he  would  not  come  up  to  me  on  one  point :  "  Did  you 
ever  lick  molasses  on  the  wharves?"  "Yes,  and 
go  in  from  Cambridge  to  do  it ! " 

Now  I  have  materials  for  his  biography  which  no 
other  man  can  possess. —  Well,  though  he  had  not 
regained  his  strength,  he  was  like  himself,  and  I  was 
greatly  comforted.  .  .  . 

You  appear  to  have  seen  everybody  that  was 
requisite  (Judge  Holmes?)  in  Boston.  ...  I  shall 
not  be  satisfied  till  you  see  A[lice]  J[ames],  and  I 
should  smile  upon  any  passion  which  you  might 
contract  one  for  the  other.  (Alice  is  a  bit  of  a 
fanatic  —  you  would  not  mind  that.  She  is  unmis 
takably  divine;  so  we  all  think  in  this  house,  but 
she  does  not  know  how  high  I  rate  her.) 

Mrs.  Whitman  you  have  effectually  captivated, 
and  that  is  worth  doing.  .  .  . 

Sunday,  loth  November,  1889. 

One  of  those  bores  of  which  every  man  has  his 
allotted  share  has  been  holding  forth  to  me,  while 


74  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1889 

I  have  been  wishing  to  be  at  22.  There  is  no  es 
cape  from  them.  I  bow  my  head  meekly,  not  al 
ways  so  very  meekly,  there  are  maledictions  when 
the  door  opens,  but  I  yield,  give  forced  attention, 
hope  that  they  will  go,  see  them  rise  with  a  sigh 
of  relief,  see  them  sit  again  with  a  sigh  of  despair  — 
well,  probably  I  have  had  my  allowance  for  to 
day.  .  .  . 

I  have  ordered  Macmillan  to  send  you  a  book, 
Hamerton's  "French  and  English."  Everything  I 
have  seen  of  Hamerton's  is  worth  reading  at  least 
in  part.  You  will  not  be  obliged  to  read  more  than 
you  like.  He  knows  the  French  well,  has  a  French 
wife,  and  is  a  man  unusually  free  from  prejudice. 
I  sent  for  two  tales  of  Amy  Levy,  a  young  Jewess 
who  died  a  few  weeks  ago,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three.  These  I  meant,  if  they  turned  out  to  be 
good,  to  send  to  you,  but  "Reuben  Sachs,"  which 
I  have  read,  is  extremely  flimsy  and  would  hardly 
bear  reading  aloud  notwithstanding  the  neat,  beau 
tiful  type.  .  .  .  This  is  a  disappointment,  but  not 
so  great  as  it  would  have  been  to  send  you  the 
books  and  have  you  find  out  their  worthlessness  for 
yourself.  .  .  . 

Overtures  were  once  made  me  to  accept  a  place 
at  Columbia  College.  If  I  had  I  might  come  to  22 
on  my  way  from  my  classes  and  read  some  good 
German  things  with  you.  I  might  have  you  for  a 
whole  month.  Would  it  not  have  been  better  to 


1889]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  75 

have  ordered  my  career  with  reference  to  such  a 
possibility? 

There  are  so  many  beautiful  things  in  the  world 
which  go  unread.  I  want  to  have  all  the  rest  of  my 
time  to  read  fine  old  romances  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
Spanish  ballads,  Dante,  Homer,  and  ever  so  much 
more  of  the  great  and  well-proved  books  with  those 
I  like;  not  to  read  them  once,  but  many  [times], 
over  and  over.  What  a  world  that  would  be !  ... 

Tuesday,  i2th  November,  1889. 

...  In  the  afternoon  James  Lowell  looked  in,  and 
now  that  he  is  established  at  Elmwood  I  shall  see 
him  often  as  of  old  —  which  makes  the  world  look 
more  friendly.  Who  says  that  literature  is  ill-paid? 
He  had  written  a  little  poem,  a  very  short  one,  I 
think,  not  to  order,  but  for  his  own  amusement,  or 
perhaps  because  he  could  not  help.  A  newspaper 
sends  him  a  thousand  dollars  and  asks  only  that  he 
will  send  something,  and  he  sends  off  his  little  poem. 
Going  back  to  the  house  where  he  used  to  be  happy 
makes  him  grave.  His  daughter  is  with  him  and 
has  changed  things  just  enough  to  have  them  not 
too  familiar. 

I  finished  a  book  of  Miss  Woolson's  last  evening 

-  "  Rodman,  the  Keeper,  and  Other  Tales."     Did  I 

mention  it  to  you?     There  are  three  or  four  very 

good  things  in  it.     With  you  in  my  thoughts   I 

asked  J.  R.  L.  for  something  readable.    He  had  only 


76  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1889 

a  recent  book  of  Stevenson's  to  name.  It  is  not 
everybody  that  cares  very  much  for  Stevenson. 
Your  "French  and  English"  I  shall  have  to  seek 
here,  for  Macmillan  writes  that  they  do  not  publish 
it  in  America!  Queer,  since  they  publish  it  in 
England. 

This  morning  I  did  a  little  work  without  inter 
ruption  (it  is  not  interruption  when  you  or  J.  L. 
look  in,  but  there  are  people  who  prefer  morning 
hours  for  wasting)  so  I  feel  less  dissatisfied,  than 
when  I  look  back  on  a  day  and  say  —  nothing  done, 
how  much  time  have  you?  .  .  . 

*  FRA  FRA.  * 

Sunday,  16  November,  1889. 

Events  have  interfered  with  my  writing  you  an 
intended  line  —  very  sad  events.  Two  weeks  ago 
yesterday  we  had  a  lunch  for  an  Englishman,  and  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  Mary  Curtis,  who  had 
come  home  after  a  three  years'  absence.  Yesterday 
I  went  to  her  funeral.  Mary  Curtis  was  (is)  one  of 
my  very  oldest  friends  out  of  my  family.  She  was 
a  friend  of  more  than  forty  years.  I  used  to  talk 
almost  my  soul  out  to  her  when  I  was  little  more 
than  a  boy.  She  was  a  remarkable  person — very 
clever,  very  bright  and  very  various,  very  sincere 
and  faithful.  We  were  bound  together  by  all  these 
years  of  intimacy.  She  was  left  not  quite  alone  be 
cause  she  had  many  half-brothers,  but  she  had  no 


1 889]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  77 

home,  her  only  brother  having  transferred  himself  to 
Venice  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  I  was  counting  upon 
having  her  much  to  myself  during  this  winter.  She 
took  a  cold  and  died  of  pneumonia  the  very  morning 
that  I  first  heard  she  was  ill.  It  was  a  dreadful  stroke. 
If  I  could  have  seen  her!  She  might  have  been 
happy  in  a  way  for  years  longer,  for  she  had  great 
intellectual  resources.  She  would  have  made  us 
a  visit,  and  I  should  have  talked  all  the  years  over. 
All  that  I  had  was  two  rather  brief  interviews,  and 
yesterday  she  was  borne  by  me  in  the  church  as 
if  she  and  I  were  strangers.  All  her  brothers  are  in 
Europe  and  away  from  home.  I  think  I  was  the 
nearest  friend  that  was  present,  but  nobody  knew 
it.  I  think  I  knew  more  of  her  than  any  of  her  kin. 

Just  as  we  were  going  to  Boston  for  the  service, 
I  heard  that  Harry  Minot,  Kate  Sedgwick's  son, 
a  lovely  and  most  superior  young  man,  had  been 
killed  in  a  railroad  accident.  In  the  afternoon  I 
learned  that  James  Lowell  had  had  another  attack 
of  his  threatening  illness.  I  was  to  go  to  see  him 
this  morning  (it  is  still  evening)  but  had  the  last 
proofs  of  my  book  to  return,  and  am  lame  with  being 
too  much  in  the  garden,  and  two  ladies  are  coming 
to  an  early  dinner. 

Yesterday  I  all  but  wished  that  things  would 
cease,  but  I  am  not  in  a  way  to  wish  that,  since  I 
have  children  to  look  out  for  and  other  relatives, 
and  you  to  think  of. 


78  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1889 

My  dearest  M.,  it  is  not  such  a  letter  as  this  that 
you  need.     You   are   serious   enough   already.     I 
think  I  am  serious  too.   You  must  be  in  New  York 
where  there  are  people  you  love  besides  L—  — .    But 
I  wish  there  were  more.     Friends  will  go.     I  have 
now  lost  three  of  my  most  precious  and  more  that 
were  ill  to  spare.     I  have  nearly  every  letter,  per 
haps  every  letter,  that  Mary  Curtis  ever  wrote  me. 
They  were  all  letters  of  her  own,  different  from  any 
body  else's.    She  was  by  nature  extremely  reserved 
and  rather  shy  with  me  till  the  last.    I  allowed  six 
weeks  to  go  by  in  the  summer  without  writing  to 
her,  thinking  she  was  taken  up  with  her  brothers. 
Then  I  went  to  her,  wondering  that  she  had  not  made 
appointments  to  see  me  when  she  came  to  Bos 
ton,  as  was  understood.    She  had  been  ill,  but  was 
well  again.    I  went  with  a  slight  effusion,  showing 
how  much  I  wished  to  see  her.     Her  last  letter, 
as  it  proved  to  be,  began:  "Why  didn't  you  say 
this  before?"     So  she  had  missed  my  letters.     I 
have  nothing  to  reproach  myself  with,  in  her  re 
gard.    I  had  always  loved  her  and  had  the  highest 
opinion  of  her.     But  still,  if  I  had  known  that 
she  would  not  be  with  us  all  the  winter  I  should 
have  said  many  things  before.     I   ought   not  to 
have  minded  her  reserve.    Wherever  the  good  are, 
she  is.     She  had  much  sorrow  to  live  through  and 
bore  herself  well.     Dearest  M.,  it  is  only  a  piece 
of  life.     But  I  have  had  her  friendship  and  shall 
always  keep  it. 


1 889]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  79 

I  have  very  little  time  to  read,  but  am  finishing 
the  Italian  Characters.  That  book  has  given  me 
more  comfort  than  anything  I  have  read  for  years. 
When  you  read  it,  you  will  be  with  the  noblest  of 
men  and  women  for  nearly  four  hundred  pages.  I 
know  that  you  will  think  with  me.  It  will  be  a 
surprise,  however  well  you  may  have  thought  of 
men  and  women  and  of  Italians.  .  .  . 

20  November,  1889. 

A  voice  in  the  next  room — O  why  was  such  a 
voice  ever  given  to  a  woman!  ...  It  is  a  sort  of 
Arkansas  voice,  mind  you,  an  Arkansaw  voice,  but 
almost  the  prettiest  woman  that  ever  was  in  Boston, 
who  is  to  be  married  about  this  very  time  to  a  fine 
specimen  of  a  British  sailor  —  has  a  voice  that  even 
when  it  said  "Y-es,"  or  "I  will,  I  will"  must  jar. 
Beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound  has  not  passed 
into  it.  Rather  give  me  a  good  bit  of  homely  face  if 
a  sweet  voice  went  with  it.  One  could  sit  in  the 
dark  and  make  or  think  verses  to  it ;  one  could  save 
candles,  gas,  kerosene,  and  be  happy.  This  voice 
which  has  gone  (or  /  should  have  gone  to  pieces) 
belongs  to  a  very  good  woman;  a  very  "nice" 
woman;  a  very  otherwise  pleasing  woman.  She 
will  never  know  how  she  has  been  operating  on  my 
nerves.  Let  the  man  in  the  cellar  rattle  his  furnace 
a  little  longer,  and  I  shall  come  back  to  peace  and 
think  of  my  M.  in  silence  since  I  am  not  in  the  way 
of  thinking  of  her  to  music.  .  .  . 


80  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

[In  the  early  months  of  1890  Professor  Child's 
correspondent  made  a  journey  to  Mexico.  In  the 
course  of  it  he  wrote  her  a  number  of  letters,  from 
which  the  following  passages,  bearing  chiefly  upon 
the  journey  and  its  experiences,  are  taken.] 

8th  January,  1890. 

.  .  .  Your  journey  seemed  to  me  like  a  pilgrim 
age  in  the  middle  ages.  From  Washington  to 
Albany,  from  Albany  to  Cincinnati,  and  oh,  from 
Cincinnati  to  New  Orleans,  and  oh,  oh,  72  hours  to 
Mexico!  Bless  your  youth.  It  does  not  strike  you 
as  so  very  bad  to  be  shut  up  72  hours  after  all  that ! 
If  I  had  not  been  lying  on  the  sofa,  I  dare  say  the 
long  journeys  would  not  have  tired  me  so  much. 
But  I  am  not  going  to  tire  you  beforehand.  .  .  . 
What  I  did  not  know  when  I  was  applauding  you 
was  that  I  was  just  losing  a  visit  in  the  spring. 
Well,  should  I  not  have  applauded  still?  Much 
pleasure  may  come  of  this  Mexico  after  all.  It  will 
certainly  be  a  considerable  novelty.  But  how  hard 
it  is  that  there  should  be  such  interminable  tracts  — 
wastes  I  should  call  them  —  between  here  and  any 
place  in  America  that  affords  a  variety.  Again,  I 
will  whip  myself  up  and  not  be  faint-hearted  for 
you.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  R has  been  gently  beginning  to  make  a 

socialist  of  me.  That  is  she  has  given  me  a  remark 
able  article  by  Sidney  Webb  on  Socialism  in  Eng- 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  81 

land,  whence  it  appears  to  be  sure  that  everybody 
who  is  for  bettering  the  state  of  the  less  fortunate 
classes  is  by  necessity  a  socialist.  But  there  are 
several  steps  to  be  passed  before  one  comes  to  no 
property  in  land,  no  incomes  except  from  labor,  and 
so  on.  I  can  agree  that  so  far  men  have  found  no 
tolerable  way  of  living,  and  that  when  John  Rocka- 
feller,  or  whatever  his  blessed  name  is,  never  heard 
of  by  me,  lives  with  a  reputed  (though  of  course 
exaggerated)  fortune  of  120  millions,  a  certain  class 
must  be  unduly  favored  by  present  arrangements. 
Accordingly  Bellamy's  "Looking  Backward"  sells 
to  230  thousand. 

You  leave  Washington  on  the  fourteenth,  next 
Tuesday.  You  ought  to  have  a  lot  of  good  books 
with  you.  Have  you  thought  of  any?  Not  H. 
Adams's  "  Jefferson,"  but  a  road-book.  I  am  desti 
tute  of  agreeable  recommendations.  My  latest 
reading  is  H.  James's  "Siege  of  London,"  "Pen 
sion  Beaurepas,"  etc.,  which  you  know  all 
about.  .  .  . 

CAMBRIDGE,  January  23,  1890. 

I  meant  to  have  been  waiting  for  you  in  Mexico ; 
and  you  will  be  there  before  me :  you  will  be  there 
this  very  day,  perhaps,  and  I  think  you  will  exclaim, 
Fra  Fra —  !  but  don't  finish.  I  have  had  my  hands 
full,  and  though  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  a  bit  of 
greeting  upon  your  arrival  would  content  you,  I 


82  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

wanted  to  write  you  more,  and  so  wrote  nothing. 
One  of  the  wisest  saws  in  this  world  is  "le  mieux 
est  Pennemi  du  bien."  Five  minutes  would  have 
saved  me  from  the  pang  of  not  being  there  to  receive 
you  —  of  being  indeed  a  week  too  late.  I  ought  to 
have  written  the  moment  you  stepped  into  your 
train  at  New  York,  ...  or  the  next  moment  when 
you  suppressed  your  tear.  ...  It  seems  to  me  a 
long,  long  time  since  you  went  away  and  since  I 
wrote  you.  I  did  not  write  much  about  your  going 
because  the  journey  daunted  me;  but  now  it  is  over 
you  will  find  much  to  interest  you  and  the  return 
journey  will  not  daunt  either  of  us. 

We  are  having  a  cold  day,  and  the  contrast  to 
New  Orleans  is  extreme.  But  I  have  not  minded 
the  outside  world  much.  It  is  more  than  I  can  do 
to  make  my  own  little  world  revolve.  Some  comet 
is  always  getting  into  my  orbit  and  causing  pertur 
bations.  My  publishers  wrote  yesterday  that  they 
were  quite  ready  for  No.  7.  I  am  far  from  ready. 
The  correspondence  with  London  and  Edinburgh 
about  things  which  I  wish  to  find  and  cannot  is 
always  hampering  me. 

I  have  seen  nobody  that  you  would  care  to  hear 
about.  James  Lowell  is  only  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
me.  I  do  not  go  to  him  and  he  does  not  come  this 
way:  he  is  shut  up,  as  I  suppose,  writing  a  Life  of 
Hawthorne.  I  have  just  finished  another  half  year. 
How  swift,  how  little  done!  .  .  . 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  83 

We  have  just  lost  our  old  Francis  Bowen1  — 
seventy-eight  years  —  and  his  demise  brings  me  the 
nearer  to  the  head  of  the  list.  Shall  I  actually  see 
myself  at  the  very  head  by  and  by?  I  shall  have 
to  learn  manners  to  suit  my  place.  .  .  . 

What  do  you  mean  by  wanting  to  be  a  Catholic? 
Are  you  not  Catholic?  Then  what  am  I?  I  am 
secular,  to  be  sure,  a  cult-priest,  and  I  think  it 
better  for  you  to  be  in  the  world.  Last  night  while 
reading  a  foolish  novel  in  which  a  passionate  lover, 
who  had  tried  to  push  a  rival  off  a  high  cliff,  fell 
himself,  was  miraculously  preserved,  and  turned 
Dominican,  I  was  so  much  affected  by  (Thomas 
a  Kempis's  words?)  "Lose  all  and  find  me"  that  I 
was  not  sure  that  I  had  not  had  a  call. 

Sufre,  si  quieres  gozar; 
Baja,  si  quieres  subir: 
Pierde,  si  quieres  ganar; 
Muere,  si  quieres  vivir! 

When  such  voices  come  to  me,  I  feel  as  if  I  were 
all  but  ready  to  take  a  step.  There  is  a  glamour 
in  the  recurrence  which  for  the  moment  subdues 
rationalism  and  reason.  There  was  a  time  when 
perhaps  I  could  not  have  resisted  the  fascination, 
for  it  is  a  fascination,  an  enchantment.  If  you  fall 
in  with  a  thoroughly  unworldly  and  benignant  old 
priest  (not  a  fool)  you  may  feel  it  in  Mexico.  Or 
shall  we  say: 

'Alford  Professor  of  Natural  Religion,  Moral  Philosophy,  and  Civil 
Polity  in  Harvard  College,  1853-1889;  Emeritus,  1889-1890. 


84  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

Nacer  sin  querer  nacer: 
Sin  quererlo,  padecer; 
Vivir  sin  querer  vivir; 
Morir  sin  querer  morir ! 
Pierde,  si  quieres  ganar! 

Still  the  old  thought,  to  save  one's  soul.  No,  my 
daughter,  your  confessor  will  not  turn  your  thoughts 
that  way.  Be  what  you  are  and  will  be.  Vivir  y 
querer  vivir  —  and  the  world  will  gain  whether  you 
do  or  not.  How  grave !  "  Lose  all  and  find  me  "  is 
after  all  easier.  .  .  . 

January  29,  1890. 

On  the  point  of  a  dreaded  and  somewhat  deferred 
journey  myself,  I  find  the  situation  very  compli 
cated.  This  journey  I  expect  to  have  to  make  at 
least  twice  in  every  year  ;  still,  it  is  a  little  formid 
able,  or  at  best  a  let  and  an  impediment.  It  is 
to  Boston  that  I  go,  sacrificing  a  bright  sky  to  busi 
ness,  but  things  undone  haunt  me  until  they  get 
attention. 

This  is  a  week  of  examinations  and  until  Satur 
day  I  am  free  (though  I  spent  yesterday  on  setting 
papers)  to  work  in  my  own  way. 

We  have  had  a  mild  season  of  winter,  and  yester 
day,  with  the  thermometer  at  about  twenty,  and  an 
inch  or  two  of  clean,  crackling  snow  on  the  ground, 
I  took  the  first  real  walk  I  have  had  in  a  long  time. 
But  I  have  a  quantity  of  stale  work  to  bring  up  — 
things  that  I  have  touched  or  half  done  and  have 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  85 

become  disgusted  with.     This  is  the  weather  for 
taking  them  up. 

I  wonder  whether,  with  all  the  luxuries  of  a 
Montezuma  train,  they  keep  novelists  to  get  up 
entertainment  for  the  passengers.  Very  likely  they 
have  a  library ;  but  attractive  novelists  are  not  to  be 
commanded  by  ordinary  means.  I  doubt  whether 
Howells  or  Harry  James  can  be  hired  to  write 
stories  that  end  well.  When  stories  do  not  end  well, 
or  do  not  end  at  all,  I  feel  myself  defrauded.  I  have 
read  three  of  H.  James  lately  in  which  we  were  left 
in  the  air.  When  last  heard  of,  the  important  per 
sons  had  taken  no  decisive  steps.  Upon  the  third 
experience  I  felt  that  I  could  not  go  on  with  H.  J. 
unless  I  interposed  somebody  else.  But  this  does 
not  mean  that  I  shall  expect  you  to  begin  and  finish 
a  romance  in  Mexico.  Now  go  to  your  temple  or 
your  wild  horse  and  I  will  go  to  my  business.  It 
makes  you  seem  nearer  when  I  write  one  sheet 
about  nothing. 

Ever  your  f.  and  f. 

^  FRA.  FRA.  ^ 

Buffalo  Bill,  says  the  morning  paper,  is  trying 
for  the  Coliseum  to  exhibit  him. 

February  i,  1890. 

One  of  twelve  gone  already,  dearest  M.,  and  noted 
the  more  perhaps  because  I  was  therefore  brought 
to  a  birthday.  This  I  have  celebrated  only  by 


86  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

holding  an  examination.  Still  there  are  yellow 
roses  before  me,  and  three  beautiful  Catherine  Mer- 
mets,  and  one  beautiful  white,  perhaps  the  Bride. 
They  give  charm  and  dignity  to  the  world.  We 
must  be  of  some  account  to  have  roses  allowed  us. 
The  consolation  goes  deep.  I  reverence  them  as 
heaven-sent,  to  help  us  through  the  base  or  wretched 
parts  of  life.  And  then  because  that  of  which  they 
are  a  type  —  womankind !  Was  it  not  in  sympathy 
and  pity  that  woman  was  sent  into  a  world  where 
there  would  be  so  much  coarse  clay  and  so  much 
brutality?  So  you  see,  though  you  are  in  Mexico, 
heaven  knows  where,  I  have  something  very  like 
you  just  under  my  eye.  If  I  wonder  why  these 
were  given  me,  it  is  only  as  I  wonder  why  you  were 
given  me  and  my  kind.  .  .  .  Were  you  in  Europe  I 
should  know  how  to  place  you.  In  a  country  quite 
without  geography,  which  is  simply  Mexico,  you 
are  entirely  lost.  Do  you  think  you  shall  come  out 
of  it  at  last?  Shall  I  see  you  in  white  in  Stockbridge 
and  no  traces  of  Ixtaxihuatl  or  Popocatapetl  about 
you?  Perhaps  you  are  enjoying  the  Mexicans 
vividly,  and  this  is  what  I  wish. 

February  4,  1890. 

I  am  delighted  not  to  have  heard  from  you,  for  I 
shall  soon  have  written  you  seven  times  since  you 
reached  Mexico,  in  anticipation  of  a  letter  from 
you.  That  would  in  a  measure  restore  the  balance. 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  87 

A  subsidiary  cost  of  my  pleasure  is  the  conviction 
that  you  have  fallen  in  with  the  hero  of  your  dreams 
—  or  of  your  waking  hours  —  and  that  you  are  find 
ing  Mexico  a  great  deal  better  than  Spain,  a  castle 
in  Mexico  particularly. 

Well,  I  had  not  thought  to  give  you  to  an  out 
landish  person.  I  find  from  reading  "Lady  Bar- 
berina"  (H.  James)  that  young  ladies  who  have 
been  accustomed  to  take  their  fences  like  a  grass 
hopper  in  England  cannot  put  up  with  New  York, 
and  in  the  end  succeed  in  returning  to  their  island. 
I  do  not  think  it  hazardous  to  infer  that  Mexico 
would  suit  you  as  little  as  New  York  pleased  Bar- 
berina,  and  that  you  will  accomplish  a  return.  But 
is  it  Prince  Yturbide?  The  turbide  is  troublesome. 
Why  not  El  Principe  Sereno  y  Constante  y  Diafano, 
or  Conde  Claros?  Shall  I  see  him  in  Stockbridge 
next  summer,  Principe  or  Conde?  or  shall  I  have 
to  seek  you  in  a  hill-castle?  Mantenga  Dios  a  tu 
Alte-La,  anyway.  You  would  not  depart  so  far  from 
Juliet  as  to  have  anybody  but  Fra  Fra  join  your 
hands,  I  know.  .  .  . 

February  8,  1890. 

We  have  a  young  girl  with  us  who  has  lived  in 
Mexico,  and  when  letters  were  brought  in  this 
morning  she  exclaimed,  "You  have  one  from 
Mexico !"  Here  it  is,  mailed  February  i,  so  that  we 
are  only  a  week  apart  from  South  to  North,  but 


88  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

from  North  to  South  apparently  longer.  That  is 
to  make  up  for  our  paying  only  two  cents  postage 
from  North  to  South,  as  my  young  Julia  informs 
me  I  am  to  do,  but  are  they  really  two  and  a  half 
times  as  long  in  bringing  you  my  letters  ?  My  first, 
as  I  hope  you  have  several  days  known,  was  written 
on  the  Thursday  when  you  were  to  arrive  —  much 
too  late,  as  I  have  ruefully  said.  This,  I  think,  is  my 
sixth.  .  .  . 

You  hit  my  birthday  by  instinct :  the  first  it  was, 
not  is !  I  am  not  born  again  as  I  should  like  to  be 
every  twenty  years.  To  be  born  again  every  year 
would  on  the  whole  be  a  loss,  you  know,  even  though 
I  were  born  the  same  person,  and  not,  as  might 
happen,  a  person  with  an  aversion  to  all  my  actual 
propensities.  I  might  be  born  to  be  indifferent  to 
roses,  to  poetry,  to  study,  to  almost  anything  but 
M. :  I  don't  see  how  I  could  be  so  made  over  or 
distorted.  But  then  I  might  be  born  to  go  many 
years  without  knowing  her,  for  that  has  happened 
once.  It  is  far  better  not  to  be  born  again  at  all 
than  to  be  exposed  to  such  risks.  If  I  had  been 
born  over  only  once  even,  and  some  thirty  years  ago, 
so  as  to  have  a  chance  of  living  as  long  as  she  —  that, 
on  the  face  of  it  and  at  first,  looks  not  so  ill.  But 
perhaps  she  would  not  have  liked  me  at  all  then  — 
perhaps  it  is  things  which  I  have  lived  off  that  make 
me  tolerable  to  her.  As  it  is  my  years  certainly 
make  me  her  Fra  Fra.  I  have  told  you  of  my  ist 


1890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  89 

last  Saturday.  I  have  some  relics  of  my  flowers 
still,  and  I  have  your  birthday  letter,  which  out- 
pinks,  out-violets,  out-roses  them  all.  .  .  . 

February  16,  1890. 

...  I  want  to  go  to  see  Lowell  this  afternoon 
and  my  little  Hoopers  —  five  girls.  This  cannot  be 
done  unless  I  am  taken  by  horses.  Lend  me  a 
broncho!  .  .  . 

You,  I  imagine,  are  out  of  doors  all  day  and 
never  look  at  a  book,  brown  as  a  berry,  hungry  as 
a  hawk  —  taking  prickly-pear  hedges  "like  a  grass 
hopper"  (p.  p.'s  may  be  ten  feet  high  for  all  I 
know)  and  perhaps  you  can  shoot  from  your  horse 
like  Buffalo  Bill  himself.  Shall  I  know  my  M.?  if 
I  ever  see  her  again,  which  seems  extremely  prob 
lematical.  You  seem  always  as  far  off  and  as  far 
back  as  Penthesilea.  But  you  say  your  Aves?  I 
know  a  little  Catholic  girl,  who,  as  her  father  says, 
stops  dancing  only  to  say  her  prayers.  A  wild  M., 
dark  conception!  But  after  all  a  girl  who  could 
not  revert  to  wildness  would  not  be  good  for  much. 
However  savage  you  may  grow,  I  remain  (with  dis 
ciplined  tastes  for  the  same),  your  only 

*    FRA  FRA.  * 

February  17,  1890. 

...  I  read  your  letter  with  consternation.  I 
had  really  imagined  you  to  be  leading  the  life  which 


90  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

I  ascribed  to  you  —  all  day  out  in  the  air,  in  wild 
scenes,  with  very  sufficient  enjoyment  to  reward 
you  and  to  make  you  willing  to  have  gone  so  far. 
Instead  of  that,  eight  days  over  perhaps  a  dying 
woman,  with  a  very  depressing  prospect  even  if  she 
recovers !  I  do  not  forget  that  you  are  nearly  their 
sole  dependence,  and  that  you  are  doing  a  dear 
woman's  better  part  which  cannot  be  taken  away 
from  you;  but  it  was  too  soon  to  have  you  called 
upon  for  such  a  duty.  You  had  gone  away  to  recover 
from  the  consequences  of  a  very  great  strain  and 
drain  upon  your  strength  and  affection.  My  dear 
est  M.,  your  four  thousand  miles  is  a  planetary 
distance  :  a  fearful  tract  to  go  over  in  thought, 
and  how  much  more  in  fact.  I  did  not  at  all  under 
stand  that  poor  Mrs.  -  -'s  delicacy  of  health  ex 
posed  her  to  such  a  contingency  and  exposed  you, 
for  whom  by  nature's  law  I  could  not  help  being 
greatly  more  concerned.  And  now  there  is  nothing 
to  do  but  to  wait,  at  this  awful  distance  of  space 
and  time.  .  .  . 

Since  you  will  have  a  conscience  that  will  not 
let  us  repine,  I  will  take  simple  human  nature's 
side.  Indeed,  I  want  my  M.  to  be  herself,  to  be 
everything  generous  and  good ;  but  it  is  because  she 
has  been  so  that  I  wanted  her  spared  —  a  little 
while  —  till  she  might  recover  strength  to  go  on  with 
life.  Now,  all  I  can  do  is  to  love  you,  as  it  seems, 
ten  times  as  much,  and  to  think  of  you  all  the  time, 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  91 

as  we  say.  I  wrote  just  a  little  nonsense  yesterday, 
which,  if  it  comes  to  you,  will  show  how  utterly  I 
misconceived  the  situation.  Such  delusion,  such 
thoughtlessness  as  it  now  appears !  But  I  am  sure 
that  my  ever  fresh  and  tender  love  shone  through. 
How  much  do  you  suppose  I  care  for  my  work  now 
that  I  have  your  letter?  Keep  well  yourself,  my 
precious  M.,  and  be  out  of  doors  all  you  can. 
Your  afflicted  and  most  loving 

^  FRA  FRA.  ^ 

Monday,   18  February,   1890. 

I  carry  you  on  my  mind  all  the  time,  my  poor  M. 
Your  days  are  now  as  much  of  one  color  as  mine, 
and  the  hue  not  so  bright.  .  .  .  Things  will  probably 
not  move  fast  with  you,  and  I  shall  be  a  week  in 
hearing  of  any  improvement  that  may  occur.  I  do 
not  expect  you  to  write  now  until  you  have  time  to 
waste.  .  .  . 

The  fair  ladies  of  Boston  have  all  taken  to  phi 
losophy.  Our  Royce  is  giving  twelve  lectures  in  the 
most  fashionable  parlors  to  the  flower  of  Beacon 
Street  and  Commonwealth  Avenue.  They  will 
probably,  these  ladies,  be  soon  saying  that  they  are 
of  the  religion  de  toutes  les  dames  sensibles,  but  I 
believe  they  are  orthodox  enough  at  present.  Bos 
ton  was  needing  a  little  excitement.  There  are 
seventy  of  these  ladies  —  Mrs.  Brimmer,  Mrs.  Whit 
man,  etc.  .  .  . 


92  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1890 

20th  February,  1890. 

After  beginning  with  a  big  snowstorm,  the  sky 
has  cleared  up  almost  enough  for  me  to  see  as  far 
as  Mexico,  but  not  quite  as  far  as  Cuautla. 

I  will  not  ask  myself  idle  questions — such  as 

has  poor  Mrs. come  through?  Whatever  her 

condition  is,  I  suppose  you  are  practically  unable  to 
be  gone  long  from  her.  I  don't  see  how  you  occupy 
yourself  when  you  are  not  tending  on  her.  .  .  . 
Think  of  it !  you  might  be  in  New  York  hearing  all 
Wagner's  operas  in  the  order  in  which  they  were 
written  —  which  is  thought  to  be  quite  necessary  for 
our  understanding  of  him.  So  far  as  I  know,  he  is 
the  only  author  for  whom  such  a  demand  is  made. 
Would  you  not  rather,  on  the  whole,  be  in  Mexico  ? 
I  wonder  whether  your  peasants  made  a  carnival 
at  Cuautla.  I  am  very  desirous  that  they  should  do 
something  for  you  to  look  at  outside  of  your  win 
dow,  besides  lounging  round  in  picturesque  cos 
tumes  and  on  donkeys.  Are  there  no  serenaders, 
no  aubaders?  I  can't  conceive  that  my  M.  should 
not  have  made  a  stir  in  the  place  if  she  were  ever 
seen.  But  she  is  shut  up,  poor  sweet,  and  the  sere 
naders  know  that  there  is  a  sick  lady  and  so  do  not 
come  to  her  window.  .  .  . 

21  February,  1890. 

What  a  Lent  you  are  keeping,  and  began  keeping 
long  in  advance !  If  there  is  any  verity  in  prophecy, 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  93 

"for  it,  shall  thy  light  break  forth  like  the  morn 
ing  and  thine  health  spring  forth  speedily."  I  am 
anxious  about  your  health  and  read  this  prophet 
to  keep  up  my  courage.  .  .  . 

Though  your  journey  will  have  been  a  defeat  of 
my  hopes  and  expectations  for  you,  I  am  eager  to 
hear  that  you  are  on  your  way  back.  I  really  do 
not  see  what  it  avails  to  write  such  things,  but 
troublous  days  make  one  very  monotone.  I  have 
only  one  round  of  thoughts  about  you,  and  that  very 
limited.  I  fancy  you  sitting  by  a  bed  in  a  long,  bare 
room,  with  a  red  tiled  floor;  then  after  a  long  at 
tendance  going  to  your  quarters  and  writing  a  note 
to  Washington,  always  saying,  it  is  absolutely  un 
certain  when  we  can  take  our  first  step  northwards ; 
there  is  no  prospect  yet.  Then  a  short  ride,  perhaps, 
and  back  to  the  bedside.  .  .  . 

Friday,  14  March,  1890. 

The  strangeness  of  a  letter  from  the  Atlantic 
Coast  Line  has  not  even  yet  evaporated.  I  seem 
myself  to  have  been  in  some  strange  line  all  this 
week.  When  you  were  in  Washington  I  thought 
you  would  be  at  the  next  door.  But  nobody  has 
said  yet  that  you  are  in  Washington.  Did  Congress 
adjourn  on  Monday  to  come  and  call  on  you?  I 
expected  this,  but  my  newspaper,  which  is  meagre 
as  to  Congress,  did  not  say  so.  Did  the  retired 
navy  officers  who  all  live  together  fire  a  salute?  I 


94  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

suppose  each  of  them  is  permitted  to  have  one 
gun  mounted  before  his  house.  And  the  diplo 
matic  corps,  what  did  they  do?  There  must  have 
been  a  stir,  you  must  have  received  many  delega 
tions. 

I  followed  you  through  your  journey  as  well  as 
imagination  could  work,  having  only  a  broad  area 
to  sweep  over  and  no  line.  At  n  o'clock  Saturday 
I  said,  there  is  her  train!  I  allowed  15  minutes  for 
contingencies  and  then  you  were  at  home.  Well, 
when  you  were  at  home,  did  you  not  begin  to  feel 
your  long  journey?  Were  you  put  to  bed  to  re 
cover?  Are  you  abed?  .  .  . 

Nothing  has  happened.  The  only  thing  we  have 
to  think  of  is  James  Lowell.  I  saw  him  this  morn 
ing.  This  day  makes  three  weeks  in  bed  for  him. 
He  looks  white,  and  very  noble,  I  think.  Our  good 
doctor,  who  is  close  upon  80,  spent  two  nights  with 
him.  I  saw  him,  and  he  speaks  with  some  comfort 
of  the  case.  Still  there  is  no  security  though  J.  L. 
is  much  more  comfortable.  The  doctor  speaks  with 
admiration  of  L.'s  courage  and  serenity.  He  must 
live.  He  reads  light  things,  and  he  told  me  this 
morning  that  he  had  both  heard  and  seen  the  robins, 
from  his  bed.  I,  who  have  been  out  every  day,  have 
seen  no  robin.  They  come  to  him  first,  and  he  has 
eyes  which  see  many  things  that  come  late  to  me, 
or  not  at  all.  Life  would  be  much  grayer  without 
J.  L.  .  .  . 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  95 

Thursday  p.m.  3rd  April,  1890. 

It  is  something  to  have  you  in  Madison  Avenue 
again,  though  I  cannot  look  for  you  in  my  photo 
graph  again,  and  in  fact  you  seem  to  me  fixed  in 
no  place  except  in  the  second  story  of  the  Stock- 
bridge  house.  This  is  spring,  and  I  am  baked  in 
my  den  with  almost  a  winter  fire.  I  found  it  too 
warm  out  of  doors  even  without  a  coat. 

I  have  been  looking  over  my  roses  a  little,  and 
mourning  winter's  ravages :  nothing  like  it  ever  hap 
pened  before.  Yesterday  I  renewed  my  youth  after 
a  manner--  did  such  things  as  only  a  young 
woman,  a  M.,  can  equal  (but  surpass  is  nearer  the 
fact),  superintended  the  making  of  a  border  for  a 
hedge,  finished  the  first  pruning  of  roses,  went  to  see 
James  Lowell,  and  walked  home  (very  tired  al 
ready),  lighted  a  bonfire  of  leaves  and  rubbish,  and 
had  to  watch  it  till  12^  out  of  regard  for  my 
neighbors'  safety.  I  was  not  in  constant  attendance 
from  5  to  midnight,  but  hours  together,  and  all  the 
last  two  hours  —  which  was  n't  it  childish?  for  there 
was  no  danger,  only  a  bonfire  rouses  all  the  boy  that 
is  left  in  a  man  (and  I  had  four  boys  to  help  me  at 
the  beginning).  What  was  the  consequence?  I 
have  been  so  tired  all  day  that  I  have  brought  noth 
ing  to  pass  —  just  like  a  girl  who  has  danced  till  4 
and  then  risen  for  breakfast.  Now  after  all  this 
bragging  of  my  poor  prowess,  I  see  how  it  shrinks 
in  comparison  with  days  of  yours  of  which  you  have 


96  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

told  me,  and  which  very  likely  you  are  repeating  in 
New  York. 

But  how  are  your  dear  eyes,  and  how  did  you 
hurt  them  ?  Is  it  a  sequel  of  Mexico  ?  Perhaps  you 
could  not  read  your  Howells  in  the  train.  We  have 
finished  and  are  bookless,  that  is,  must  fall  back  on 
old  things.  I  feel  very  secure  about  your  enjoy 
ment  of  the  "H[azard]  of  N[ew]  F[ortunes]." 

Your  uncle  has  asked  me  to  spend  Sunday  with 
him  and  I  want  to  be  with  him  ever  so  much,  but 
I  dread  the  journey  and  the  spoiling  of  Saturday 
and  Monday.  I  fear  that  I  shall  not  go  to  New 
port  after  all  my  balancing,  but  give  up  the  rest  of 
this  brilliant  afternoon  and  stretch  myself  on  a 
(Carthusian)  lounge.  Where  is  my  scourge  —  some 
body  has  hidden  it  away  or  else  the  devil  has  turned 
it  into  a  feather  duster.  Alas  for  my  soul!  But 
I  can  say  my  beads  on  that  lounge, and  half  the 
string  shall  be  for  you. 

Your  frail  but  fond 

*  FRA  FRA  * 

Sunday,  2Oth  April,  1890. 

Here  I  am  sitting  in  state,  and  what  do  you  sup 
pose  that  means?  It  is  R 's  birthday,  and  is 

that  the  reason?     Nay,  I  have  written  to  R 

-and  she  would  not  care  to  have  me  sit  in  state  for 
her.  It  means  that  I  have  had  a  lady  to  dinner  and 
that  she  has  just  driven  off,  and  that  it  was  only 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  97 

yesterday  that  she  was  seen  and  asked,  and  we  could 
get  no  company  besides  William  James  and  nothing 
to  eat  beyond  the  Sabbatical  dinner,  and  with  my 
S—  —  having  been  unwell  and  her  mother  conse 
quently  worn  out,  there  was  some  slight  anxiety 
about  this  modest  dinner,  which  is  now  terminated 
after  a  pleasant  2^  hours,  and  so  I  am  serene,  but 
still  have  a  festival  feeling  and  sit  in  state  (but  I 
was  smoking,  which  kings  don't  do,  though  I  think 
I  saw  Pio  Nono  take  snuff  during  the  solemnities  of 
Palm  Sunday).  Then  I  thought  I  would,  not  ex 
actly  come  down  from  my  state,  since  I  was  minded 
to  write  to  M.,  which  should  elate  and  estate  me 
only  higher,  and  as  for  my  unusual  black  coat,  if 
Sir  Joshua  could  paint  only  in  full  dress  I  ought 
probably  to  put  off  and  put  on  something  when 
ever  I  write  to  M.  Such  is  the  situation.  .  .  . 

Our  lady  was  Miss of  Baltimore.  Very 

nice,  very  lady  [-like],  intelligent,  high-minded. 
Why  has  she  a  gray  hair  on  her  temple  and  not 
so  much  as  35  years  old?  She  seems  to  brush 
her  hair  back  so  as  to  show  the  gray !  I  think  she 
is  grave;  abandon  she  has  not  —  does  not  quite  let 
herself  go,  but  do  people  generally?  She  has  no 
airs,  is  perfectly  simple,  very  honest,  and  seemed  to 
enjoy  her  small  dinner,  which  proves  that  she  is 
good. 

Will  James  was  charming,  to  be  sure.  I  wish 
there  were  a  Will  James  for  her.  Indeed,  I  should 


98  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

like  to  marry  off  all  the  girls  that  I  don't  want  to 
marry  myself,  to  W.  J.,  and  perhaps  I  would  give 
him  one-half  of  the  reserve. 

The  world  is  beautiful  today:  hepaticas,  spring- 
beauties,  anemone  rues,  are  all  in  lovely  flower. 
These  little  creatures  share  my  heart  with  the  roses. 
I  feel  also  that  the  rose  has  reason  to  be  jealous 
of  a  certain  virgilia  standing  in  the  college-yard 
which  I  woo  every  time  I  go  thither,  and  which  has 
a  very  pretty  consciousness  of  things  which  I  have 
murmured  under  its  branches.  If  I  were  to  go  mad, 
I  am  pretty  sure  that  my  delirium  would  take  the 
shape  of  a  passion  for  that  tree.  This  confession  I 
have  made  only  to  you,  and  if  the  case  occurs  you 
can  come  in  with  the  diagnosis.  .  .  . 

There  is  a  contest  between  the  garden  and  my 
work  now,  though  the  weather  is  cool:  as  soon  as 
a  warfn  wind  blows  I  fear  the  work  will  go  to  the 
wall. 

Good-bye  —  how  I  should  like  to  see  you  this  af 
ternoon  !  I  feel  strangely  light-hearted.  Perhaps  I 
should  rattle. 

Your  professed  and  assured 

^  FRA  FRA  ^ 

Sunday,  May  n,  1890. 

This  week  has  been  full  of  committee  meetings, 
four  or  five,  of  two  hours  each,  say  four,  for  that  was 
enough.  Anyway,  I  have  done  nothing  but  college 


1 890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  99 

work  and  a  little  in  the  rose  garden.  Again  and  again 
I  wanted  to  write  to  -  — .  I  saw  her  slipping  out  of 
my  hands.  I  feel  just  now  like  a  pin  bent  in  the 
middle,  as  if  I  could  be  straightened  only  by  ham 
mering.  But  I  have  had  no  time  to  myself  all 
day  till  the  afternoon,  when  I  took  to  reading  a  rose 
catalogue,  which  resulted  in  my  ordering  more  roses, 
which  resulted  in  remorse,  which  resulted  in  my 
tearing  up  the  order.  It  would  be  very  foolish  to 
have  more  roses  when  it  has  become  uncertain 
whether  roses  will  live  here  any  more.  One  cannot 
easily  believe  that  the  mild  winter  has  weakened 
or  killed  so  many.  If  not  the  wet  winter,  it  must 
be  last  season's  fungus,  and  as  the  fungus  is  all 
but  immortal,  the  roses  before  long  will  go.  Still 
drops  some  joy  from  lingering  life  away.  When 
they  go  I  shall  bestow  all  my  keen  passion  for 
them  on  you,  shall  I  not?  You  will  not  drop  your 
leaves  or  refuse  your  bloom.  Dearest  M.,  how 
happy  am  I  to  have  you  with  the  rose  and  how 
shall  I  be  consoled  to  have  you  after  the  rose ! 

The  virgilia  is  a  very  tender  object  to  me.  I 
salute  it  every  time  I  pass,  and  take  the  tender  tips 
of  its  fingers  in  my  hands.  It  is  not  entirely  in 
sensible  to  my  admiration,  but  has  a  most  virginal 
superiority.  I  should  have  also  been  in  love  with 
Dorothea  Brooke  (was  that  her  name?)  if  she  had 
not  married  that  mouldy  Casaubon.  You  see  I  am 
reading  "  Middlemarch  "  aloud  —  reading  it  for 


ioo  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

the  first  time.  It  compels  continual  tributes.  I 
am  amazed  at  the  genius.  It  is  all  of  G.  E.'s  that 
I  have  read  save  "Adam  Bede."  Miss  G.  does  not 
clash  with  Dorothea  and  somehow  no  one  of  them, 
D.,  G.,  or  V.,  seems  capable  to  take  the  place  of  M. 
in  the  scale  of  being.  .  .  . 

The  world  is  so  beautiful  now  everywhere,  or  at 
least  where  grass  grows,  that  I  never  want  to  leave 
it.  If  I  could  walk  two  or  three  miles,  I  would  go 
to  see  all  my  friends  while  the  world  is  so  fresh. 
I  think  I  could  not  fail  to  impress  them  as  very 
young.  But  I  ought  to  stay  all  day  and  every  day 
in  my  den  and  work.  I  have  not  yet  made  ready  for 
the  printers,  and  how  shall  I  get  away  until  I  am 
clear  of  the  present  job?  No  going.  You  really 
cannot  live  on  dinner  parties.  Still,  while  your  eyes 
don't  serve  I  will  hope  you  have  one  every  day.  I 
have  been  out  once  within  memory.  But  I  thought 
I  would  never  go  again.  It  was  all  men,  to  be  sure. 
Who  would  care  to  have  to  quit  a  world  that  was 
all  men? 

I  have  seen  nobody  since  I  saw  the  Miss of 

whom  you  remind  me.  If  I  were  to  tell  you  of  what 
most  occupies  my  thoughts  it  would  be  ...  and 
James  Lowell  who  has  once  come  down  to  Norton's 
(in  a  carriage)  to  lunch  with  Mrs.  Whitman.  I 
have  not  seen  him  for  weeks;  all  because  of  com 
mittees  and  ankles  and  perhaps  roses  in  part.  He 
was  very  bright  at  the  lunch.  Harry  James  wrote  to 


1890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  101 

Grace  Norton  the  other  day  expressing  the  most 
earnest  wish  that  Lowell  would  never  show  him 
self  in  London  in  a  state  of  declining  health.  The 
glittering  society  would  no  more  mind  him  than  a 
cavalry  man  minds  the  friend  that  lies  in  his  way. 
So  I  gathered  from  what  H.  J.  said:  the  cavalry 
man  would,  I  fancy,  if  he  could,  so  I  apologize  to 
him,  and  H.  J.  did  not  bring  him  in.  But  what  a 
world!  Who  cares  for  its  flattery  or  its  fondling 
then?  .  .  . 

Tomorrow  makes  13  years  since  I  lost  Jane  Nor 
ton.  I  can't  speak  of  it  to  Grace.  I  shall  speak  of  it 
to  nobody.  But  I  shall  make  some  sign  to  Grace. 

Tuesday  Afternoon,  May  27th,  1890. 
...  I  shall  get  "William  and  Lucy  Smith"  by 
and  by  upon  the  character  you  give.  Life  is  richer 
for  "  Middlemarch."  How  nice  it  was  of  me  not 
to  read  the  book  before !  I  go  out  less  and  less  and 
see  few  people  out  of  books,  but  I  hoarded  Doro 
thea  till  the  day  I  needed  her.  My  James  Lowell  is 
always  here  now — not  to  come  down  to  me  but 
.for  me  to  go  to.  He  is  in  his  old,  easy,  simple  way,, 
and  he  and  I  enjoyed  a  charming  bear,  who  visited, 
us  at  Elmwood  the  last  time  I  was  with  him,  as 
much  as  any  of  the  other  children.  J.  R.  L.  has 
been  kindly  writing  for  me  to  Lord  Rosebery,  who 
had  politely  consented  to  let  me  see  (with  other 
people's  eyes)  a  valuable  collection  from  which  I 


102  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1890 

may  extract  ballads.  He  is  my  ambassador  now, 
and  has  always  acted  as  such,  and  much  help  he 
has  given  me.  .  .  . 

June  3,  1890. 

...  I  have  already  been  out  among  the  roses, 
exulting  over  the  fresh  leaves  and  the  promise  of 
bloom  —  but  sighing  too  over  the  lot  of  the  beauti 
ful,  and  the  denial  of  perfection  to  us.  I  thought 
that  I  might  be  growing  philosophical,  for  I 
imagined  some  one  else  saying  my  saws  —  wonder 
ing  that  I  could  condescend  to  marred  delights  — 
suggesting  that  the  pain  immeasurably  outweighed 
the  delight  —  and  answered  —  my  dear  fellow,  I 
will  take  an  egg-shell  full  of  pleasure  if  I  cannot 
have  a  deep  goblet,  and  I  will  strain  out  straws  and 
sticks  if  I  can't  have  it  pure :  it  is  not  a  base  content : 
I  am  not  accepting  bacon  for  ambrosia  and  beer  for 
nectar.  This  is  nectar  after  all,  though  a  little  tur 
bid.  Swedenborg  would  tell  us  that  it  is  men  that 
mar  the  rose  (observe,  7  don't  say  women).  If 
men  would  get  rid  of  all  their  badness,  there  would 
be  no  canker,  no  blight.  Aren't  roses,  as  they  are, 
good  enough  for  men?  And  men  have  not  only 
roses  but  they  have  women.  .  .  . 

Friday  Morning,  August  8th,  1890. 
For  a  good  many  days  I  have  not  had  a  breath 
ing-spell  in  consequence  of  my  getting  the  things 


Professor  Child  in  his  garden 


1890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  103 

from  Abbotsford,  which  have  upset  work  which  I 
supposed  to  be  done,  and  so  coming  into  embarrass 
ment  with  my  printers.  .  .  . 

This  morning  I  had  the  pleasure  of  having  Alice 
and  William  James  at  breakfast,  and  I  wish  you 
had  been  here.  Alice  is  a  star,  and  a  rose,  and  an 
emerald,  and  ambrosia,  and  a  nepenthe,  and  manna, 
and  lotus,  and  haliwei,  and  piment,  the  best  mix 
ture  of  both  worlds  that  can  be.  She  is  coming 
again  "the  day  before  she  goes,"  and  are  you  en 
gaged  on  that  particular  morning?  .  .  . 

December  6,  1890. 

This  is  winter  by  quality  as  well  as  by  date.  The 
sun  is  bright  if  the  wind  is  cold.  In  three  weeks 
the  sun  will  be  coming,  or  thinking  of  coming, 
north,  which  always  gives  me  delight.  I  am  able 
then  to  believe  that  the  hepaticas  are  stirring.  I 
have  just  come  in  from  giving  the  few  teas  and  half- 
teas  which  I  have  a  warm  dry  winter  wrap  of  pine 
needles.  .  .  . 

I  am  rid  of  a  seventh  ballad  book  and  well  into 
an  eighth.  I  do  not  care  now  except  to  finish  them, 
for  the  romantic  things  are  all  done.  Still,  I  have 
some  unprinted  versions  of  Walter  Scott's  to  go  in, 
which  give  a  little  fragrance  to  the  domestic  trage 
dies  and  comedies.  A  good  parcel  came  last  week, 
many  of  them  addressed  to  "Walter  Scott,  Esq., 
Advocate,"  from  1802  on  —  before  he  was  in  the 


104  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1890 

least  famous.  (These  are  copies  only  —  the  originals 
are  like  bank-notes  and  would  pass  current.)  .  .  . 

Yesterday  I  went  to  see  my  poet,  and  found  him 
well,  but  first  to  see  a  dear  young  maid  who  is  im 
mensely  suggestive  of  poetry.  If  the  afternooon 
had  not  been  well  advanced,  and  the  poet  could 
have  had  daylight  to  see  her  by,  I  should  have  liked 
to  take  my  little  maid  in  for  him  to  see.  This 
young  creature  is  Ellen  Hooper,  Mrs.  Gurney's 
niece.  I  have  a  strong  attachment  to  her.  She  is 
very  individual  —  rather  silent  with  her  lips,  but  her 
face  is  eloquent.  She  now  goes  out  and  is  not  to  be 
treated  as  a  child.  She  was  in  Europe  during  the 
summer,  and  it  is  six  months  since  my  eyes  looked 
upon  her.  I  had  made  up  my  mind  that  she  was 
to  be  a  young  lady.  It  is  always  best  to  let  child 
hood  end  soon.  But  when  she  came  into  the  room 
she  presented  her  cheek  to  me,  and  what  could  I 
do? 

She  had  to  sit  three  hours  twenty  times  to  Whis 
tler  for  a  picture  that  I  do  not  care  for.  I  prefer 
a  photograph  which  I  have  of  her.  After  I  had 
made  a  good  call  she  took  me  to  see  their  rosebed 
which  was  planted  last  summer.  Our  friendship 
began  with  roses.  .  .  .  Then  Ellen  walked  with  me 
to  Lowell's.  Though  I  walked  all  the  way  home  I 
didn't  mind. 

To  find  this  dear  little  friend  so  sweet  and  true 
offset  all  rheumatism. 


1890]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  105 

23  December,  1890. 

We  are  so  much  farther  to  the  east  that  our 
Christmas  comes  a  day  and  a  half  earlier,  so  rest 
you  merry  and  let  nothing  you  dismay. 

I  have  either  been  working  a  little  too  constantly 
(and  at  tiresome  things)  or  have  not  been  as  well 
as  is  convenient  to  be,  and  am  accordingly  as  rheu 
matic  as  two  dry  toasts,  or  as  full  of  spleen  as  a 
weasel,  or  as  cross  as  fire,  or  as  irritable  as  a  lamb. 
Perhaps  it  all  comes  from  my  going  out  to  a  dinner 
last  Saturday  after  promising  you  the  preceding 
Sunday  that  I  should  never  do  such  a  thing  again. 
I  not  only  went  out  to  dine  (at  7)  but  talked  as  if 
I  enjoyed  dinners  above  everything.  The  lady  on 
my  left  hand  was  surprised  that  I  should  be  there, 
and  said,  "You  don't  go  out,  do  you?"  and  the 
lady  on  my  right  hand,  my  hostess,  was  surprised 
that  I  had  accepted  her  invitation  (or  had  come 
after  accepting)  and  made  me  a  compliment  the 
day  after — for  keeping  my  word,  I  suppose.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  plan  of  Sue's  and  mine  to  go  out  dis 
guised  and  sing  Christmas  carols  under  William 
James's  window,  but  a  very  young  person,  only  three 
or  four  days  from  the  skies,  might  not  like  our  style. 
Were  you  near  enough  now?  So,  to  interpose  a 
little  ease,  let  me  dally  with  false  surmise.  May 
Christmas  be  full  of  love  to  you,  whatever  lacks. 
Your  faithful  bedesman 

*  FRA  FRA  * 


106  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1891 

The  Cell,  January  19,  1891. 

Not  having  made  my  cell  very  prominent,  I  ought 
perhaps  to  assure  you  that  I  refer  to  the  cloister  and 
not  to  incarceration,  and  not  to  an  industrious  hive. 
Looking  back  upon  what  the  day  has  seen  accom 
plished,  I  am  almost  ready  to  adopt  the  words  of 
the  dear  King  of  France  (All's  Well)  and  wish, 
since  I  nor  wax  nor  honey  can  bring  home,  I  quickly 
were  dissolved  from  my  hive  to  give  some  laborers 
room.  Think  of  it,  from  9  to  7  —  two  hours  of  col 
lege,  nearly  two  more  in  visiting  my  dear  J.  R.  L. — 
a  hasty  look  at  a  book  in  the  library,  and  here  I 
am.  This  is  not  a  sample  of  my  days.  J.  R.  L. 
I  had  not  seen  for  three  weeks,  nor  G.  N.  perhaps 
for  two.  I  had  heard  that  the  poet  was  a  little  out 
of  spirits  and  he  owned  when  I  put  an  oblique  ques 
tion  that  he  had  been,  but  now  he  was  better.  Such 
a  ducal  study  gown,  or  dressing  gown,  as  he  wore 
today,  of  claret  silk,  wadded  and  quilted!  I  fancy 
he  has  astounding  things  in  his  ambassadorial 
wardrobe,  would  he  only  bring  them  out.  A  velvet 
morning  coat,  like  an  artist's,  is  his  more  ordinary 
wear,  but  the  weather  has  been  too  cold  for  that. 
Now  I  have  come  from  Grace  Norton  to  whom  I 
went  to  get  such  knowledge  of  the  world  as  will 
keep  me  from  covering  with  lichens  and  moss.  This 
time  it  was  only  an  anecdote  from  one  of  the  Miss 
Gaskells.  Mrs.  Richmond  Ritchie,  nee  Thackeray, 
had  been  lunching  or  dining  with  Miss  Gaskell,  and 


1 89 1]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  107 

had  been  warned  that  a  Manchester  philanthropist 
of  the  rank  of  shop-keeper  would  be  there,  and  she 
must  not  mind  his  far  from  careful  dress.  There 
was  a  Russian  Prince  there  as  well,  and  it  would 
seem  that  his  costume  was  not  distinctive,  for  Mrs. 
Ritchie  took  the  Russian  to  be  the  shop-keeper,  and 
I  don't  know  what  imbroglios  resulted.  The  oppor 
tunities  for  seeing  people  without  going  far  for  them 
are  not  many.  .  .  . 

Have  you  any  books  to  read?  I  look  forward 
to  attacking  a  Polish  romance  translated  by  an 
acquaintance  of  mine  —  about  800  pages  with  800 
names  hard  to  pronounce —  for  the  benefit  of  my 
family.  I  have  begun,  but  am  daunted  by  the 
names.  .  .  . 

February  i,  1891. 

Though  I  wish  you  may  stay  till  Monday,  I  fix 
my  eye  on  Washington,  because  I  think  that  house 
of  the  M—  — s  is  out  in  the  country  and  I  know  I 
never  could  find  it.  It  is  true  I  do  not  know  my 
way  in  Washington,  but  I  could  go  about  the  streets 
like  the  Moor's  daughter  who  knew  no  word  save 
London,  crying  M.,  and  probably  after  a  time  I 
should  attract  attentipn.  On  the  whole,  it  is  a 
very  sufficient  pleasure  to  be  waiting  for  you  when 
you  arrive.  Do  you  think  you  shall  know  me?  I 
am  a  year  older  today — take  heed —  I  who  would 
rather  grow  towards  you  than  away  from  you. 


io8  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1891 

It  is  a  bad  beginning  to  do  no  work  of  a  whole 
day:  so  it  has  been:  every  blessed  minute  gone  in 
writing  letters  and  receiving  roses  and  pinks  and 
violets,  with  now  and  then  a  word  to  make  things 
more  sweet.  Do  not  let  me  deceive  you  by  my 
fine  phrases  into  thinking  that  there  has  been  any 
thing  resembling  a  concourse  about  my  door.  But 
I  have  had  a  good  draught  of  affection,  and  now, 
mother  and  daughters  having  gone  through  great 
puddles  to  hear  a  Stabat  Mater,  I  find  myself  in 
a  very  rare  solitude  and  have  begun  to  think  of 
laying  my  hand  to  a  bit  of  light  work,  after  a  word 
to  you.  .  .  . 

I  cannot  keep  away  from  roses  more  than  a 
month  longer.  For  a  sop  I  think  I  have  buried  a 
thorn  in  my  finger  today  while  handling  a  few  which 
were  bestowed  upon  me.  It  is  a  pleasing  irritation. 
But  between  March  and  now  lies  a  dull  month  of 
examination  books  to  read.  .  .  . 

Welcome  back,  my  sweet  M.  Senators  will  now 
grow  inattentive  to  business  and  there  will  be  no 
quorum  —  which  I  shall  like. 

Your  loving  and  faithful 

^  FRA  FRA  ^ 

August  4,  1891. 

If  Ecclesiastes  would  spend  a  summer  in  Cam 
bridge  he  would  say  of  every  day  what  he  has  said 
of  lives  and  generations,  the  thing  that  hath  been,  it 


1891]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  109 

is  that  which  shall  be.  I  have  the  same  thing  to  tell 
you  every  year  —  save  that  every  year  a  friend  may 
die,  which  must  generally  make  a  sad  variation. 

I  am  really  working  now,  and  not  writing  letters, 
though  it  seems  to  me  that  I  ought  often  to  be 
writing  to  you,  and  I  should  write  to  you  often 
were  it  not  for  the  inevitable  repetitions.  I  stick 
to  my  desk  in  the  morning,  read  a  few  chapters  of 
"  Matrimony  "  to  Miss  G.  A.  in  the  afternoon,  read 
an  hour  or  two  in  the  evening  to  my  sister  (it  is 
"  Mile,  de  Mersac  "  just  now) ,  and  sometimes  I  go  to 
see,  not  J.  L.,  any  longer,  but  Mabel.1.  .  .  Fancy 
how  sad  it  is  for  Mabel,  who  is  the  only  other 
person  in  the  house,  besides  nurses  and  servants, 
and  who  sees  almost  nobody  because  there  is  almost 
nobody  left  in  the  town.  All  which,  no  doubt,  I 
have  said  twice  or  thrice  before.  .  .  . 

You  hope  that  J.  L.  may  be  better.  I  fear  that 
there  is  no  hope  of  anything  but  a  short  rally,  and 
the  hope  of  that  is  but  slight.  I  think  much  of  my 
parting  with  him  the  day  before  I  went  to  Stock- 
bridge.  It  was  very  possible  that  something  might 
happen;  still  I  really  expected  to  find  him  in  his 
study  again.  He  was  put  to  bed  —  and  he  does 
not  like  a  bed  —  three  or  four  days  after,  and  it  is 
most  doubtful  whether  he  will  ever  leave  it.  His 
good-bye  sounded  sad  that  Friday.  I  assumed  a 
cheerfulness  which  I  did  not  feel.  .  .  .  When  he 

1  Daughter  of  James  Russell  Lowell. 


no  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1891 

goes  he  will  take  off  a  great  cantle  of  my  world.  He 
has  been  a  good  friend  for  many  years  and  always 
hold  und  treu.  And  a  very  good  man  too,  simple, 
faithful,  with  a  nobleness  quite  his  own.  I  fear 
that  we  shall  never  exchange  words  again,  and  I 
know  that  he  will  never  come  into  this  room  again 
for  a  pleasant  hour.  .  .  . 

August  13,  1891. 

.  .  .  Well,  dear  child,  all  is  over,1  as  you  know, 
and  many  letters  have  been  called  for  in  conse 
quence.  As  I  shall  not  fail  to  have  said  before  — 
for  I  have  been  repeating  it  to  myself  in  a  reproach 
ful  way  —  I  had  my  last  hour  and  my  last  word 
with  him  the  day  before  I  came  to  Stockbridge,  and 
did  not  know  it.  And  it  could  not  have  been  better 
had  I  known  it,  the  wise  may  say;  but  I  wish  I  had 
had  a  little  more  fear  and  had  put  a  secret  farewell 
into  my  good-bye.  He  had  only  three  days  of  ra 
tional  life  after  that.  Now  we  know  the  precise  cause 
of  his  sufferings,  it  is  a  wonder  that  he  did  n't  suffer 
much  more.  Poor  Mabel's  behavior  was  exactly 
fit:  all  tenderness  and  affection,  some  tears,  but  no 
abandonment.  I  became  much  attached  to  her  in 
the  course  of  a  few  weeks  and  she  seems  to  have 
been  drawn  to  me.  The  decline  was  very  rapid  in 
the  last  few  days.  Mabel  has  one  smile  to  hoard 
which  he  gave  her  on  Monday.  I  have  been  look- 

1  James  Russell  Lowell  died  August  12,  1891. 


1 89 1]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  in 

ing  over  his  letters  today.  He  sometimes  had  a 
woman's  fond  way  of  phrasing,  though  he  was  not 
effusive.  Even  as  ambassador  he  sometimes  signs 
himself  "  Jamie."  It  is  certain  that  somewhat  most 
precious  is  gone  from  my  world.  .  .  . 

I  must  confess  that  I  had  a  serious  day  last 
Thursday  or  Wednesday.  I  had  a  singular  attack 
simulating  angina  pectoris,  word  of  fear.  For  two 
hours  there  was  a  wrestle.  I  don't  think  there  was 
danger.  The  pain  was  excessive,  but  I  know,  from 
reading,  that  a.  p.  is  very  much  worse.  I  should 
take  ether  in  case  of  recurrence,  but  I  will  own  that 
I  should  dread  recurrence.  When  one  is  quite 
ready  to  die,  when  he  can  leave  all  whom  he  loves 
happy  and  fairly  secure,  an  attack  in  the  heart  is 
not  a  formidable  thing  (saving  real  a.  p.)  ;  I  might 
also  add,  when  he  has  done  his  work. 

I  fancy  I  have  been  writing  incoherently.  A 
man  came  in  on  business  just  at  the  wrong  time, 
and  now  light  is  failing.  But  there  is  light  enough 
for  me  to  read  again  and  again  in  my  M.'s  little 
note  words  which  make  me  say,  I  should  like  to 
have  her  near  me  when  I  die.  I  am  not  uncheerful. 
Just  now  I  feel  my  loss,  our  loss.  I  am  glad  to  have 
him  released  from  pain  and  the  inability  to  do  what 
he  had  in  hand  or  thought.  But  he  would  have 
liked  to  live,  and  his  mind  was  in  excellent  working 
order.  He  was  not  of  the  sceptic  sort,  neither  was 
he  of  the  blind  believers.  He  was  a  poet  and  had 


ii2  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1891 

his  revelations  as  such.  I  believe  that  he  lives  on. 
Think  always  thus.  Can  we  imagine  a  possible 
happiness  that  the  divinity  cannot  conceive?  Can 
we  wish  more  than  he  to  effectuate  the  happiness  we 
can  conceive?  He  does  not  lack  power;  that  you 
may  know  by  looking  at  the  skies.  For  the  present 
we  are  in  the  dark.  If  light  can  deceive,  wherefore 
not  life?  My  dearest  M.,  you  are  one  of  my  evi 
dences.  James  L.  was  another.  .  .  . 

Sunday,  August  23,  1891. 

Every  word  you  write  me  endears  you  to  me 
more.  Think  what  it  will  come  to,  should  I  live  to 
have  a  thousand  letters  more!  First  I  will  tell 
you  that  I  have  had  only  one  more  scene,  or  access, 
for  I  could  not  make  a  scene  between  12  and  2  of 
the  night.  It  was  not  very  bad  though  very  strange. 
Neither  of  the  attacks  was  like  a.  p.  That  is  very 
short,  lasts  only  a  minute  at  a  time,  and  is  ter 
ribly  bad.  Twice  I  have  had  a  two  hours'  siege. 
Although  I  have  no  professional  authority,  I  think 
that  all  that  is  indicated  is  a  heart  susceptible  to 
rheumatism  or  neuralgia.  I  have  had  rheumatism 
nowhere  else  since  March.  Do  not  be  concerned, 
my  very  precious  M.  Everything  is  done  for  me.  I 
am  not  alone.  My  sister  looks  after  me,  and  most 
tenderly. 

The  world  will  never  be  the  same  again  without 
J.  R.  L.  It  was  not  such  a  loss  as  you  had  in 


1891]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  113 

.  .  .  .  But  it  is  a  loss  that  I  feel  all  the  time. 

I  could  resort  to  him  for  a  certain  kind  of  sympa 
thy  which  I  could  have  from  no  other  man.  Some 
day  when  we  are  together  I  will  show  you  some  of 
his  letters.  They  are  mostly  brief  ones,  but  they 
are  so  kind.  I  love  to  look  at  them.  I  turned 
over  letters  the  other  day  and  came  upon  half  a 
dozen  of  yours  which  I  had  kept.  The  mere  sight 
of  them  made  the  world  rich.  It  was  as  if  I  had 
opened  a  charter  chest  and  come  upon  deeds  — 
estating  to  me  the  one  genuine  and  imperishable 
treasure  that  life  has  to  offer.  Woman's  affection 
is  that.  There  are  degrees  of  carat  or  of  water  in 
it:  none  more  fine  or  pure  than  M.'s. 

There  is  a  thing  which  I  regret,  and  that  is 
J.  R.  L.  did  not  die  in  his  full  mind.  Could  I  have 
sat  by  his  bed  or  his  chair,  his  lamp  slowly  declin 
ing,  and  could  we  have  talked  of  the  other  life,  in 
which  we  both  believed,  could  I  have  read  him 
cherished  places  from  the  Bible,  there  would  have 
been  much  happiness  to  remember  from  the  last 
days.  But  there  is  much  from  earlier  days.  He 
was  a  man  without  stain,  no  meanness,  no  cruelty, 
no  vileness,  no  littleness,  noble  and  good  and  inno 
cent.  I  wish  I  could  be  with  you  two  or  three  days 
to  talk  all  this  over,  with  love  and  blessing,  and  what 
it  all  points  to. 

I  am  going  on  with  my  work  in  an  easy  way.  I 
can't  say  that  I  care  so  much  about  it  without 


H4  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1891 

J.  R.  L.,  who  has  done  much  for  me.  He  would  have 
been  so  much  pleased  to  have  it  all  nicely  finished 
up.  He  could  take  the  fine  points  in  a  ballad.  They 
seem  stale.  I  go  back  to  the  fine  ones  at  times  and 
sing  them  and  cry  over  them  like  the  old  world. 
That  sweet  Countess  Martinengo  wrote  me  once 
that  perhaps  we  did  not  care  so  very  much  to  have 
a  great  many  people  know  how  good  they  are.  O, 
what  a  rich  world,  with  its  poetry,  its  roses,  and 
better  far,  its  souls !  .  .  .  There  will  always  hence 
forth  be  such  spirits  as  M.  in  it,  and  perhaps  there 
have  been  a  great  way  back  (though  Christianity 
and  civilization  count  for  something) .... 

Here  I  have  been  writing  half  an  hour  beyond  the 
time  when  my  maid  rings  me  to  dinner.  I  did  not 
observe  the  point  of  the  day  when  I  began,  and 
she  respects  the  sanctity  of  my  occupation  so  much 
that  she  very  rarely  summons  me  personally. 

But  good-bye  now  for  a  day  or  two.  Your  sweet 
words  are  more  than  balm.  All  my  family  are 
very  happy  :  that  is  a  great  solace  when  I  am  without 
them.  Be  you  so  too  —  may  you  be.  Always,  to 
the  last  day  of  this  our  first  life,  and  if  so  for  ever, 
Your  loving  and  faithful 

^  FRA  FRA.  ^ 

Thursday,  6  P.M.  October  i,  1891. 
I  have  just  lighted  my  lamp,  and  the  thought 
that  James  Lowell  was  out  of  reach  came  over  me 


1891]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  115 

-and  then  I  remembered  that  it  was  Jane  Nor 
ton's  birthday,  and  took  out  her  miniature,  which 
Grace  Norton  has  lent  me  for  the  time  of  her  ab 
sence,  and  so  I  begin  to  write  with  the  feeling  of 
what  has  gone  from  the  world.  But  what  could 
I  do  better  than  think  of  you,  as  faithful  as  either 
of  them,  given  me  in  later  days  to  keep  the  world 
precious  ? 

I  am  quite  well,  but  not  quite  gay.  I  am  not 
quite  in  harness,  though  I  have  been  at  college  to 
day.  But  I  have  all  my  family  back  and  that  will 
warm  up  the  world,  which  has  suddenly  come  to 
frost.  I  have  had  no  flowers  to  look  at  but  morn 
ing  glories,  which  have  deserved  the  name,  and 
some  Japanese  anemones.  The  suddenness  of  the 
cold  was  a  little  depressing.  The  cold  will  be  stimu 
lating  soon.  I  am  glad  that  you  have  L with 

you  and  still  will  have:  for  tonight  the  cold  would 
make  me  feel  that  you  too  might  be  having  autumn 
thoughts.  .  .  . 

Tomorrow  I  really  begin  with  my  classes.  I 
should  a  little  rather  be  left  to  go  on  with  my  other 
work,  to  get  it  swiftly  forward,  but  I  read  Hamlet 
once  more,  and  often  wonder  at  my  luck  in  having 
for  my  work  to  read  Hamlet  with  a  hundred  boys, 
some  of  whom  are  appreciative. 

Good-night  and  good-morrow.  Thank  you  for 
saying  that  I  make  some  difference  in  the  world 
to  you. 


n6  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1891 

October  25,  1891. 

I  have  carried  your  letter  of  October  6  all  this 
time  in  my  pocket  and  not  written  you  a  word. 
Within  two  or  three  days  it  has  been  revealed  to 
me  that  I  was  become  the  slave  of  routine,  doing 
the  same  things  each  day  from  sunrise  to  ten  of 
the  night,  under  a  hazy  impression  that  I  should 
get  through  at  last.  But  it  is  bailing  the  sea  with  a 
sieve.  I  mean  to  stop  bailing  for  a  few  minutes; 
nothing  comes  of  it,  at  least  not  letters. 

Hardly  have  I  been  with  the  roses :  I  have  been 
afraid  to  transplant  them,  "  rank  their  tribes  "  like 
unf alien  Eve?  (for  I  have  thought  of  massing 
colors).  The  cold  has  put  a  stop  to  such  thoughts, 
and  it  will  perhaps  be  better  for  the  roses  in  the 
spring. 

The  printers  have  put  me  in  earnest,  but  it  is 
clear  that  the  publishers  do  not  regard  ballads,  and 
copies  of  ballad-dregs,  as  the  chief  demand  of  the 
times.  I  shall  not  interfere  to  hasten  their  pace. 
I  see  my  way  to  the  end,  and  all  I  care  about  now 
is  to  have  things  in  such  shape  that,  in  case  of 
accident,  the  book  might  be  called  complete. 

There  are  no  social  moments  here,  and  indeed, 
I  see  only  my  neighbors.  I  want  to  see  Mabel 
Lowell  often,  and  wish  she  did  not  live  two  miles 
off.  Yesterday  she  sent  me  her  father's  copy  of  the 
first  folio  of  Spenser  with  her  "dearest  love." 
Mabel  and  I  had  not  been  acquainted:  we  made 


1891]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  117 

progress  during  her  father's  sickness.  .  .  .  There 
is  something  of  Lowell  still  left  for  the  present 
—  in  her.  I  miss  him  —  how  shall  I  say?  as  I 
should  roses,  moonlight,  birds  ?  One  can  live  with 
out  any  of  these,  but  sweetness,  warmth,  and  grace 
are  precious.  One  must  not  live  for  them,  but  we 
may  sigh  for  their  removal.  My  M.  lends  all  these 
to  life  still  —  benedicite!  .  .  . 

I  opened  M.  Bashkirtseff  the  other  night  and  read 
a  little  —  wonderful  and  tiresome  girl,  so  far.  .  .  . 

December  17,  1891. 

.  .  .  The  22nd  of  February  I  am  planning  to  have 
a  solemn  music  in  the  afternoon  in  memory  of 
J.  R.  L.  There  will  perhaps  be  a  choir  of  50  boys, 
besides  a  fine  choir  of  men's  voices.  So  far  I  have 
chosen  the  most  exquisite  of  Cherubini's  Requiems, 
with  the  Kyrie  pertaining  to  the  same  mass,  a  very 
beautiful  Sanctus  of  Gounod,  and  perhaps  Handel's 
famous  Largo  (with  proper  words).  It  will  be  a 
public  performance,  but  I  shall  send  tickets  to  all 
the  nice  people  about  here,  and  friends  of  the  Col 
lege.  Now  if  you  were  making  a  visit  northward 
at  that  time!  .  .  . 

I  am  going  to  take  time  soon  —  the  students  will 
be  away  in  less  than  a  week  —  and  write  you  a  real 
letter.  You  have  had  nothing  lately  but  scraps  of 
billets  from  me.  I  will  tell  you  more  about  the  com 
memorative  service  by  and  by.  I  wish  it  were  right 


n8  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1892 

to  have  a  whole  Mass  of  Cherubim's.  My  dear 
J.  R.  L.  was  no  unbeliever,  but  he  was  not  of 
Rome.  If  anything  could  carry  me  over  it  would 
be  the  Masses.  They  ought  to  be  true;  they  must 
be  true  to  something  that  cannot  be  lightly  es 
teemed.  They  are  waiting  for  me,  and  a  guest  to 
tea,  so  now  only  receive  the  repetition  of  all  the 
dearest  and  tenderest  love  in  the  world  and  of  the 
homage  that  man  must  pay,  be  he  Fra,  paladin,  or 
poet,  to  such  a  being  as  my  M. 

Your  faithful 

^  FRA  FRA.  ^ 

Wednesday  Morning,  February  3,   1892. 

Nothing  is  so  enlivening  as  to  break  through  a 
routine.  So,  though  it  is  against  all  rules,  I  read 
your  letter  (that  is  not  against  rules),  and  take  up 
a  pen  without  regard  to  the  supposed  duties  of  the 
day.  There  is  a  higher  law. 

First,  I  am  very  much  grieved  to  hear  that  Mr. 
Ward1  is  not  only  sick  still  (sick  he  is,  not  "ill"), 
but  in  a  way  which  affords  so  very  little  hope.  He 
has  been  an  ornament  and  a  fragrance  to  the  world, 
and  besides  that  a  precious  friend  to  you,  and  to  me 
always  a  kind  friend  too.  Tom  was  of  old  my 
pupil  —  about  1860 —  and  always  much  loved  by 
me.  I  should  like  to  write  to  him. 

Tomorrow  comes  my  examination  and  after  that 

Samuel  G.  Ward,  of  Washington. 


1892]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  119 

a  long  piece  of  drudgery,  which,  however,  need  not 
be  grumbled  at.  No  one  who  undertakes  an  indus 
trious  life  escapes  drudgery.  Think  of  a  prime-min 
ister  with  his  state-dinners.  A  poet  to  be  sure?  But 
a  man  is  a  poet  only  a  few  days  out  of  the  year. 
Then  why  should  a  fellow  who  can  at  least  now 
and  then  write  to  his  M.  not  take  his  share  of  the 
dull  work  which  makes  the  world  go  on?  .  .  . 

A  few  minutes  ago  our  choir-master  was  here  to 
consult  about  one  piece  more  for  the  22nd.  Great 
pains  have  been  taken,  and  the  music  is  very  good. 
You  say  you  can  come.  That  surpasses  my  wildest 
expectations.  I  have  often  tried  to  persuade  myself 
that  something  else  might  bring  you,  but  I  never 
believed  that  you  would  come.  I  even  said,  per 
haps  she  will  come  here  and  stay  at  least  the  night. 

Now  I  find  that  Miss has  been  asked  to  our 

one  room.  If  you  will  come,  I  shall  consider  it  a 
beautiful  tribute  to  J.  R.  L.  I  shall  save  two  or 
three  places  for  you.  I  think  I  gave  you  a  list  of 
the  pieces.  Anyway  I  will  give  you  the  whole  pro 
gramme,  as  we  have  it  now,  fixed. 

Requiem  —  Cherubini  —  C  Minor  Mass. 

Miserere  —  Allegri  (part). 

Pie  Jesu,  Agnus  Dei,  Cherubini  —  D  Minor  Mass. 

Palestrina,  Omnes  amici. 

Mendelssohn  —  Beati  mortui. 

Christopher  Bach  —  Motet. 

Gounod  —  Sanctus. 

Mendelssohn  —  Periti  autem. 

Schubert  —  Great  is  Jehovah. 

Organ. 


120  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1892 

I  do  not  doubt  that  the  music  will  be  lovely,  the 
performance  I  mean,  for  the  music  is  of  the  highest 
style.  A  great  many  nice  people  will  be  asked,  but 
we  shall  not  crowd. 

Thank  you,  sweet  dear,  for  remembering  my 
birthday.  I  have  some  celestial  roses  before  me 
now.  They  all  were  so  good  as  to  open  well.  I 
certainly  don't  regard  my  occupying  of  this  sphere 
as  a  matter  of  consequence,  except  as  showing  that 
a  very  unworthy  fellow  may  have  all  sorts  of  good 
things  showered  upon  him  —  if  that  is  encourage 
ment  to  anybody.  .  .  . 

Wednesday  Evening,  March  2,  1892. 
The  22nd  of  February  is  a  long  way  behind  me, 
and  the  business  connected  with  it  was  despatched 
in  the  two  days  that  followed.  But,  to  make  up  for 
the  good  bit  of  solid  time  that  I  spent  in  the  prep 
aration,  I  shall  have  to  be  very  assiduous  for  two 
or  three  weeks  yet.  I  have  had  a  threatening  of 
illness  which,  however,  seems  to  have  passed  and  I 
am  to  go  out  to  dine  tomorrow!  which  shuts  out 
nearly  the  whole  world  from  my  sight  —  not  you. 
I  ought  to  explain  a  thing  so  "  disproportioned  "  as 
Shakspere  would  say.  Well,  it  is  only  that  people 
have  been  asked  —  and  I  asked  to  meet  them  —  to 
whom  I  am  much  attached,  and  whom  I  never  go 
to  see  (the  people  who  invited  me  to  pass  a  night 
with  Matthew  Arnold  at  their  house).  The  last 


1892]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  121 

time  I  went  out  to  dine  was  a  year  ago,  at  the  same 
house  to  which  I  am  invited  tomorrow.  I  had 
said  just  a  week  before  —  never  shall  I  go  out  to 
dine  again,  and  I  have  been  repeating  the  assev 
eration  at  intervals  ever  since,  but  still  I  am  going 
once  more! 

We  have  been,  for  us,  gay  of  late ;  but  as  long  as 
we  do  not  have  a  dinner  at  seven  o'clock  I  think 
I  can  put  up  with  life.  The  courage  to  give  a 
dinner  at  all  is  what  I  am  sure  I  shall  never  have. 
All  which  must  sound  quite  incomprehensible  to 
you.  You  would  not  shrink  from  two  or  three  a 
week,  I  dare  say. 

At  present  life  seems  to  be  standing-water.  I 
do  not  get  on.  I  have  not  finished  my  printing,  and 

0  what  is  much  worse,  I  have  produced  a  scarcely 
perceptible  diminution  of  a  great  pile  of  exami 
nation  books.     But  you  cannot  pity  me  if,  under 
such  circumstances,  I  will  still  go  out  to  dine.  .  .  . 

This,  I  believe,  makes  up  my  life  since  I  wrote 
to  you  that  I  should  not  let  the  grass  grow  under 
my  feet  again.  I  almost  believed  that  spring  was 
come.  I  thought  I  heard  a  crow  (delightful  bird), 
but  an  uncompromising  winter  snow  has  come  and 

1  am  not  pruning  roses  but  hug  the  house.    But  I 
am  glad  to  say  that  I  enjoy  thinking  of  them:  it 
would  be  a  black  sign  if  I  became  indifferent.    Snow 
and  ice  are  best  for  me  till  those  books   (exami 
nation-books)  are  done. 


122  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1892 

We  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction  and 
approbation  expressed  about  our  commemoration 
of  James  Lowell.  To  me  it  was  a  very  serious 
thing,  and  therefore  when  friends  have  declared  it 
a  "  success  "  or  the  like,  I  have  not  felt  entirely  in 
harmony  with  them.  But  people  generally  have 
been  more  felicitous  in  their  terms,  and  really  have 
exceeded  every  expectation.  The  absolute  silence 
from  the  first  note  of  the  organ  to  the  last  of  the 
Sanctus  showed  where  their  thoughts  and  what 
their  moods  were.  I  have  been  much  pleased  by 
many  saying  that  the  service  was  the  most  fitting 
thing  that  could  be,  and  much  the  more  that  not  a 
word  was  said.  I  do  wish  that  my  M.  had  been 
there.  I  know  she  would  have  been  in  perfect 
sympathy.  Of  New  Yorkers  I  think  there  were 
none  except  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Godkin,  and  I  do  not 
know  whether  they  are  affected  by  music.  I  have 
lunched  with  them  at  Theodora's,  to  my  very  great 
pleasure.  I  never  had  more  than  five  words  with 
Mrs.  Godkin  before.  .  .  . 

Your  news  of  Mr.  Ward  warmed  the  sky.  May 
all  go  well.  You  have  not  been  thanked  for  C.  de 
Noel,  —  what  an  omission!  .  .  .  Now  off  to  the  tea 
table  which  has  been  waiting  while  I  wrote.  If  I 
hear  a  crow  tomorrow,  I  will  write  him  a  sonnet. 
And  yet  I  begged  Howells  only  a  week  ago  to  sup 
press  all  sonnets  in  his  Cosmopolitan  Magazine, 
and  am  near  to  thinking  that  sonnets  should  be  a 


1892]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  123 

capital  offense,  the  printing,  not  writing.  But  in 
deed  I  shall  show  mine  only  to  the  crow  and  then  it 
will  be  caw  me,  caw  thee.  .  .  . 

>&  FRA  FRA.  ^ 


April  4,  1892. 

...  I  have  been  reading  aloud,  in  the  evening, 
FitzGerald's  version  of  Calderon's  "Mighty  Ma 
gician,"  another  piece  of  the  very  highest  merit 
and  delightfulness.  Did  I  not  read  it  to  you  once? 
I  thought  last  evening,  how  I  should  like  to  read 
that  again  and  often  to  M. !  It  carried  me  above  all 
pettinesses,  discomfort,  misgiving,  worry,  worldli- 
ness  —  all  the  ignorant  or  too  present:  I  did  not 
stop  a  minute;  it  was  rolled  off  as  fast  as  words 
could  fitly  go,  and  my  hearers,  wife  and  children, 
were  in  much  the  same  rapture  as  I. 

I  begin  to  feel  natural  tastes  again:  everything 
has  been  as  flat  as  flax-seed  tea ;  I  shall  be  looking 
out  for  books  now  that  I  see  you  are  wanting  one. 

I  have  noticed  that  association,  perhaps  with 
Washington  people!  has  lately  affected  your  lan 
guage  in  a  slight  way.  My  M.  always  writes  nice 
English,  very  nice  English.  There  has  lately  been 
an  influenza  of  would  in  the  wrong  place,  afflicting 
this  land.  People  are  saying  to  an  alarming  ex 
tent:  I  would  like,  would  you  like,  instead  of  I 
should  like,  should  you  like.  Within  two  or  three 
weeks,  I  have  seen  two  or  three  "  I  would  like's " 


124  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1892 

in  M.'s  handwriting.  I  wish  M.  to  keep  up  her 
standard,  however  far  south  she  may  go ;  the  south 
has  always  been  wrong  here.  English  novels  begin 
to  show  the  same  perversion.  Should  you  prefer 
to  have  me  hold  my  tongue?  I  think  not.  It  now 
occurs  to  me  how  very  bad  my  handwriting  is;  it 
always  is  bad  unless  I  take  conscious  pains  with  it. 
Now  to  examinations.  .  .  . 

November  6,  1892. 

It  is  of  course  quite  out  of  the  question,  my 
wishing  to  have  you  all  to  myself  one  birthday  — 
it  would  be  very  far  from  altruistic  —  but  I  wish 
something  so  altogether  elysian  as  an  hour  under 
trees  or  by  a  brookside  might  some  day  be  granted 
me  before  the  end  of  the  century. 

This  day  has  been  celebrated  by  thoughts,  and 
only  by  thoughts.  Far  off  its  coming  shone,  and 
still  I  found  nothing  to  send  you.  I  owe  you  two 
and  don't  pay.  The  two  would  not  come  in.  I 
wanted  a  nice  book  for  today,  but  could  not  find  nor 
hear  of  any.  The  first  that  turns  up  I  shall  date 
back. 

It  is  very  troublous  not  knowing  the  environment, 
as  they  say.  Now  when  you  were  in  Madison 
Avenue  I  had  the  means  of  bringing  you  vividly  into 
sight.  I  knew  that  you  would  be  in  that  picture 
some  time  of  the  day.  It  was  a  solace  not  to  be 
estimated.  Tell  me  if  the  objects  are  so  placed,  the 


1892]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  125 

Sphinx,  the  vases,  Aunt-  — ,  if  the  book-cases  and 
other  furniture  can  be  readjusted  by  imagination 
so  that  I  can  see  you  among  them.  But  it  can't  be 
so,  and  I  shall  never  see  Washington  and  I  Street. 
I  have  had  too  much  company  today.  It  was  not 
known  that  it  was  my  day  for  contemplation.  .  .  . 
The  recollection  of  your  fidelity  is  wonderfully 
sweet.  I  know  that  a  more  faithful  heart  than 
yours  has  never  beaten  in  a  woman's  breast,  and  if 
not  in  woman's,  decidedly  not  in  man's.  So  much 
faithfulness,  so  much  capacity  for  the  extremity  of 
affection  and  devotion  and  tenderness,  so  high  a 
spirit  —  Oh  but  I  am  not  meaning  to  take  you  to 
pieces  —  such  a  complex  of  all  dear,  and  sweet,  and 
fine,  and  noble  things,  can  it  be  that  such  a  girl 
is  born  somewhere  in  the  world  every  day  in  the 
year,  every  month  in  the  year?  Let  me  see,  there 
was  Hermione  born  in  January,  and  Beatrice  in 
February,  and  Viola  in  March,  and  Portia  in  April, 
and  Perdita  in  May,  and  Cordelia  in  June,  and 
Juliet  in  July,  and  the  Roman  Portia  in  August,  and 
Olivia  in  September,  and  Desdemona  in  October, 
and  M.  in  November,  and  Celia  in  December.  So 
we  bring  the  months  round,  and  not  much  further 
can  I  go.  And  to  think  that  my  M.  should  be  all 
the  eleven  together  —  so  would  I  say  and  brag, 
were  I  praising  her.  But  I  am  only  writing  a  letter 
to  pour  out  another  year's  love  in  advance  and  a 
back-year's  love  which  I  owe.  .  .  . 


126  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1892 

MONDAY,  26  December,  1892. 

(We  shall  not  be  able  to  write  '92  much  longer, 
so  I  put  in  the  year.)  One  violet  will  scent  a 
room,  and  your  violet  calendar  will  keep  me  so 
fragrant  that  people  will  think  I  have  just  been 
converted  by  St.  Cecilia  "  and  say  I  wonder  this 
time  of  the  year,  whence  that  sweet  savour  cometh 
that  I  smell  here."  I  was  just  about  to  put  it  into 
my  pocket  for  1893,  when  I  observed  that  the  old 
year  was  not  quite  gone ;  so  there  it  lies  under  my 
left  elbow  waiting  for  next  Sunday.  Like  children 
I  wanted  to  begin  with  my  gift  before  the  time. 
Now  there  are  six  days  left  of  this  familiar  year, 
and  I  might  spend  them  in  asking  whether  I  have 
loved  my  M.  enough.  But  if  I  have  not,  there  is  no 
retrieval ;  and  I  have  loved  her  every  day  with  faith 
and  fervor.  .  .  . 

As  to  your  not  finding  things  for  me,  you  always 
find  the  very  thing  that  was  indispensable.  Shall 
I  mention  the  cushion,  as  sweet  of  odor,  as  the 
Chartreuse  which  my  brethren  make,  is  of  savor;  the 
silken  purse  full  of  golden  beads  and  thoughts  which 
keeps  this  paper  flat  as  I  write;  the  book  cover; 
the  calendar  of  last  year,  and  the  year  before ;  and 
now  the  little  calendar  without  which  I  should  not 
be  able  to  find  my  way  into  1893,  but  which,  in  my 
left  pocket,  will  perhaps  take  me  safely  to  the  very 
end  of  it?  And  from  me  you  have  only  a  pretense 
of  a  seal,  and  a  pretense  of  a  picture.  But  I  really 


1892]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  127 

am  going  to  Boston  some  day  in  the  first  half  of 
January. 

You  are  a  true  child  of  our  order  for  ubbidienza. 
I  am  reading  "I  Fioretti  di  San  Francesco,"  and  I 
find  you  as  good  as  any  of  the  frati,  and  so  I  will  say 
as  San  F.  did  to  Bernardo  :  "Ora  comanda  tu  a 
me  cio  che  tu  vuoi  ch'io  ti  faccia,  perocch'io  ti  ho 
promesso  ubbidienza."  .  .  . 

I  have  recommended  my  way  to  several  people 
without  bringing  them  to  it.  Make  up  your  mind 
what  line  to  take,  and  then  order  10,  20,  50,  of  the 
same  thing,  say  boxes  of  feminine  soap.  (On 
Theodora's  box  I  wrote: 

Amitie  bonne 
Se  savonne. 

Don't  you  think  that  that  sounds  quite  genuine 
and  proverbial?)  When  instinct  pointed  me  an 
other  way  I  followed.  I  made  it  as  hard  as  possible 
for  people  to  give  me  anything.  What  does  a  man 
who  has  taken  vows  of  poverty  want?  what  can  he 
accept?  He  wants  nothing  but  his  missal  and  his 
calendar.  I  sent  two  bottles  of  our  cordial,  by  way 
of  exception,  to  as  many  friends  (and  told  G.  Norton, 
who  knows  I  hate  the  phrase,  that  I  was  "  cordially 
hers").  .  .  . 

Thank  you  for  liking  to  be  loved  by  me  and  for 
letting  me  love  you. 

Your  ^  FRA  FRA.  ^ 
least  of  the  least,  and  constant  bedesman. 


128  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1893 

Monday,  30  January,  1893.     6.30. 

That  is  the  point  of  the  diurnal  revolution  where 
I  am,  just  after  receiving  a  second  call  from  a  dis 
charged  convict,  who  finds  it  difficult  to  get  back 
to  a  respectable  career,  a  pretty  tough  problem  for 
him  and  for  me.  Having  had  to  do  with  two  or 
three  of  these  fellows,  I  am  likely  to  have  a  very 
fair  clientele.  They  evidently  were  much  more 
comfortable  in  durance,  but  I  have  not  heard  from 
any  of  them  that  he  preferred  the  fleshpots  of  cap 
tivity.  It  is  wonderful  what  decent-looking  fellows 
some  of  them  are,  by  nature ;  or  is  it  that  I  am  not 
a  connoisseur? 

Well,  dear,  your  last  letter  was  particularly  satis 
factory.  The  more  lunches  and  dinners,  the  better. 
.  .  .  All  these  I  once  liked  myself  and  I  went  out 
to  a  5  o'clock  tea  not  longer  ago  than  Friday  (the 
next  house).  As  you  say,  I  should  have  died  with 
half  of  your  achievement,  and  (as  you  do  not  say) 
should  have  died  ignominiously,  while  you  would 
have  the  proud  acclaim,  morte  sur  le  champ  d'hon- 
neur;  but  the  Neys,  the  Marbots,  I  may  say  rather, 
the  Jeanne  d'Arcs,  don't  finish  in  that  way.  It  did 
you  good,  naturally.  You  were  made  to  be  a  queen 
of  society,  and  even  a  brief  interlude  of  reigning 
sets  you  up.  But  don't  abdicate,  and  most  of  all, 
don't  go  into  a  cloister.  .  .  . 

I  find  that  when  I  finish  a  bit  of  work  I  am  still 


1 893]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  129 

capable  of  elation  of  spirits,  but  only  of  moderate 
elation.  It  is  some  years  since  I  have  been  in 
absurd  unquestioning  high  spirits.  .  .  . 

I  have  heard  something  about  Renaissance  cos 
tumes  here.1  Norton  is  said  to  be  applied  to  for 
instructions.  Now  if  he  were  enterprising,  if  he 
were  Worth-y,  he  would  open  a  shop,  an  emporium, 
"Renaissance  parlors,"  and  in  two  months  make 
a  fortune  —  all  in  the  interest  of  art,  too.  And  you 
would  be  a  customer.  By  St.  Rene  and  St.  Renard, 
I  have  a  great  mind  to  do  it  myself,  though  I  know 
not  one  cut  from  another.  You  would  be  a  silent 
but  active  partner,  would  n't  you  ?  Well,  good  for 
tune  to  that  gown,  though  I  shall  not  see  it.  I 
never  see  you  in  any  of  your  grandes  toilettes, 
do  I?  ... 

March  4  and  April  6  are  before  you,  and  Mrs. 
Kuhn  in  anticipation  for  the  inauguration.  This 
and  the  Renaissance  dress  which  requires  a  month's 
forethought,  fill  up  the  picture  very  nicely.  All  of 
it  will  be  salutary  for  you.  .  .  .  Go  with  you  to 
the  World's  Fair?  Were  I  a  nimble  and  a  quibbling 
Shakspere,  how  I  would  answer  you,  my  fair.  An 
other  pleasant  prospect,  and  every  prospect  pleases. 
I  must  take  out  my  calendar  and  mark  these  all 
down.  .  .  .  Perhaps  to  see  you  in  April,  were  renais 
sance  for  me. 

1  An  "  Artists'  Festival "  in  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  was  about 
to  occur. 


i3o  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1893 

February  i,  1893. 

I  was  going  to  write  1950,  but  thinking  of  you  and 
your  roses  I  will  amend  the  record  and  say  1850. 
— 1850!  and  I  am  a  student  in  Gottingen,  and 
wear  boots  five  inches  above  the  knee.  Nobody 
that  I  can  remember  ever  gave  me  a  rose  up  to  that 
time,  so  this  is  a  beginning  of  a  new  life  to  me, 
and  what  a  blushing  letter  shall  I  write  you,  of 
deeper  dye  than  Catherine  Mermet,  of  which  I 
have  glorious  specimens  before  me,  quite  up  to  the 
tint  of  American  Beauty,  if  that  is  the  name  of 
those  great  globes.  And  what  shall  I  say  in  1850 
too,  "  best  love  and  all  the  good  wishes  in  the  world"  ? 
Was  it  not  worth  while  to  live  six  times  Jacob's  ser 
vice,  which  I  suppose  is  about  the  time  you  would 
have  appointed  me,  had  we  both  been  on  the  stage 
together  then,  but  you  were  not  yet  "come  from 
afar."  The  roses  were  in  excellent  condition ;  they 
came  about  3  o'clock  marked  "please  rush."  I 
might,  if  I  could  be  superstitious,  be  a  little 
alarmed  by  this  day's  peculiar  gracing!  .  .  . 

March  26,  1893. 

I  have  had  to  spare  you  my  conjurations  to  get 
well  and  to  content  myself  with  silent  wishes,  for 
I  have  been  immersed  in  work  or  occupied  with 
company.  April  is  close  at  hand.  We  have  passed 
from  winter  to  spring  in  two  days'  space,  and  plants 
are  bursting  without  any  recollection  of  the  depth 


1 893]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  131 

of  snow  and  ice  which  covered  them  as  it  were 
yesterday.  If  you  have  passed  from  languor  and 
feverishness  to  vigor  and  freshness,  whether  in  the 
same  space  or  more  gradually,  and  are  now  in  con 
dition  to  think  normally  of  your  renaissance  cos 
tume,  I  must  needs  be  contented.  ...  I  have  been 
pretty  well  housed  since  November,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  college  hours,  but  yesterday  I  inspected 
my  roses  —  finding  them  much  the  worse  for  the 
winter — and  pruned  a  few.  I  do  not  see  how  I  am 
to  perform  my  usual  part  to  them  unless  I  get  a  pair 
of  artificial  ankles.  I  am  ridiculously  infirm  there. 
Work  is  pressing  too.  I  have  had  a  summons  from 
my  publisher.  Still  I  shall  adventure.  I  cannot 
have  the  old  rapture  of  long  mornings  in  the  garden. 
I  suspect  that  even  an  hour  over  roses  will  leave  me 
incapable  of  standing  on  my  feet  for  the  rest  of  the 
day.  But  I  am  willing  almost  to  die  for  them.  .  .  . 
There  [in  Philadelphia]  my  Helen  lunched  with 
Dr.  Furness  —  not  old,  but  91  next  month  —  by 
whom  she  was  affectionately  received  and  made 
very  happy.  You  ought  to  know  Dr.  Furness.  I 
don't  remember  any  man  living  whom  I  should  so 
much  wish  you  to  know.  You  have  friends  in 
Philadelphia,  of  course.  The  Doctor  and  I  think 
very  much  alike.  He  would  take  to  you  instantly. 
On  your  way  back  to  Washington  do  stay  three  or 
four  days  with  some  Philadelphians  and  have  your 
self  taken  to  see  the  dear  Doctor.  Mrs.  Caspar 


132  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1893 

Wister,  his  daughter,  who  lives  with  him,  is  a  very 
attractive  woman,  and  Horace  F.,  my  dear  friend, 
would  read  you  Shakspere.  (Mrs.  W.  says  that  he 
reads  better  than  anybody  since  Mrs.  Kemble.)  .  .  . 

27  August,  1893. 

Why  do  you  suppose  I  have  been  silent  so  long? 
Not  because  I  have  not  thought  of  you  every  day, 
but  because  I  have  been  so  tedious  to  myself  that 
I  fear  I  should  be  infectious.  I  have  had  rheumatic 
gout  since  the  beginning  of  July,  and  am  now  writ 
ing  in  slippers,  instead  of  wearing  shoon  of  corde- 
waine,  or  whatever  is  finest,  as  would  be  fit  when 
addressing  my  sweet  M.  .  .  .  Occupation  has  not 
been  lacking.  I  have  spent  some  weeks  on  a  glos 
sary  which  I  have  to  make,  and  it  will  take  all  the 
time  to  the  end  of  September  and  the  beginning  of 
college  to  complete  it  —  perhaps  more  —  and  even 
then  I  shall  have  to  seek  information  in  the  north 
of  Scotland  as  to  many  queer  words.  The  summer 
has  not  gone  to  waste.  .  .  .  Almost  everybody  is 
away  from  Cambridge  and  I  cannot  seek  the  few 
that  are  left.  My  sister  is  with  me  and  treats  me 
as  sisters  do  brothers.  I  am  scarcely  allowed  to 
fetch  a  chair  or  help  myself  any  way.  I  work  all 
day  at  my  desk  (with  digressions  of  necessary  letter- 
writing)  and  after  tea  read  a  novel  to  my  sister  and 
play  bezique,  my  only  game. 

I  have  not  heard  of  any  nice  new  book  (I  should 


1893]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  133 

send  it  to  you  if  I  had)  but  content  myself  with 
Trollope,  lately  with  "  The  Claverings,"  a  very  fair 
story.  I  get  up  two  or  three  times  in  the  night,  when 
gout  is  raging,  or  it  may  be  rheumatism,  and  read 
a  little.  .  .  .  Finding  Drummond's  tract,  "The 
Greatest  Thing  in  the  World  "  lying  about,  I  have 
read  that,  and  it  affected  me  considerably.  You 
have  seen  it,  no  doubt.  I  did  not  expect  to  like 
Drummond.  But  this  little  book  is  a  very  good 
book  and  very  well  written.  Nothing  can  go  quite 
deep  enough.  Of  course  we  can  be  satisfied,  if  God 
is  Love.  But  there  are  difficulties  arising  from  ex 
perience,  of  which  D.  says  nothing,  of  which  even 
Jesus  said  nothing.  Nobody  has  ever  said  anything 
which  recurs  to  me  oftener  than  the  words  of  a 
Frenchman  (a  master  house-painter)  : — 

Je  crois  en  Dieu  qui  a  ecrit  dans  nos  coeurs  la 
loi  du  devoir,  la  loi  du  pr  ogres,  la  loi  du  sacrifice 
de  soi-meme  pour  autrui.  Je  me  soumets  a  sa 
volonte,  je  m  incline  devant  les  mysteres  de  sa  puis 
sance  et  de  notre  destinee.  Je  suis  U  humble  disciple 
de  celui,  qui  nous  a  dit  de  jaire  aux  autres  ce  que 
nous  voudrions  quit  nous  jut  fait,  et  d' aimer  notre 
prochain  comme  nous-memes.  C'est  ainsi  que  je 
veux  rester  chretien  jusqua  mon  dernier  soupir. 

But  this  was  said  by  a  man  (near  his  death)  who 
had  been  doing  a  wonderful  deal  to  make  the 
world  better,  house-painter  as  he  was.  I  look  about 


134  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1893 

every  day  (every  night)  and  say,  what  are  you 
doing?  You  have  been  today  making  a  glossary. 
Whatever  is  said  about  Love  ruling,  there  is  a  mys 
tery  to  bow  before,  a  painful  clash,  as  it  seems,  of 
events  with  our  cherished  maxim.  We  must  bow  — 
we  can't  deny  without  going  wild.  .  .  . 

November  5-6,  1893. 

...  I  have  had  company  for  three  hours,  .  .  . 
and  the  morning  was  very  short,  and  the  day  is 
gone,  with  very  little  to  show  for  it.  This  seems  to 
be  the  course  with  all  my  days  now,  and  I  make  my 
reflections  when  my  head  goes  on  my  pillow.  But 
this  day  is  not  quite  to  go  without  my  sending 
particular  thoughts  to  my  sweet  M.  That  is  not 
an  act  of  virtue,  but  not  to  have  sent  her  a  great 
oblation  of  affection  would  be  a  greater  miss  and 
disappointment  to  me  when  I  take  my  leave  of  the 
day  than  those  I  ordinarily  have  to  regret.  By  this 
time  she  is  convinced  that  next  to  herself,  whom  for 
fidelity  I  rank  highest,  I  am  the  least  inconstant  in 
affection  —  isn't  she?  No  man,  out  of  a  sonnet, 
must  profess  himself  equal  to  a  woman  in  that  re 
gard,  I  suppose ;  but  I  say  this  in  homage  to  you  and 
to  womanhood,  not  because  I  have  any  conscious 
ness  of  variableness.  My  M.  is  always  the  same 
dear  and  lovely  being  to  me,  and  I  never  have  to 
whip  myself  up  to  love  and  prize  her,  and  I  require 
no  reminders  of  her.  All  the  same,  it  seems  to 


1 893]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  135 

me  that  I  can  do  next  to  nothing  to  add  to  her 
happiness.  I  have  not  gone  to  see  her  in  two  years, 
and  I  have  not  even  sent  her  a  book  for  a  very 
long  time.  It  has  all  been  serious  and  silent 
thought,  with  now  and  then  a  letter.  But  she  likes 
to  be  loved,  and  prized,  and  reverenced,  and  there 
I  am  not  wanting.  There  is  so  little  left  in  me  but 
dregs  that  I  might  doubt  whether  I  could  pour  a 
strong  and  clear  libation  on  her  altar,  but  whatever 
else  I  doubt  about  I  have  not  come  to  doubt  of  the 
strength  of  my  love.  .  .  . 

The  old  friend  who  looks  me  straight  in  the  face 
from  my  table,  James  Lowell,  has  been  brought 
vividly  back  through  his  letters  which  I  have  been 
reading  in  two  big  volumes.  I  was  a  little  surprised 
to  see  that  two  big  volumes  could  be  made  of  real 
letters,  for  such  they  are,  not  too  literary,  but  as 
off-hand  and  familiar  as  he  was  accustomed  to  be 
in  real  life.  He  was  always  decorous,  not  riotous. 
If  you  see  the  volumes  you  will  find  one  or  two 
marks  of  his  friendship  for  me,  which  it  would 
make  me  blush  to  point  out  to  you.  I  cannot  pre 
tend  not  to  feel  pleasure  at  having  discovered  them. 
I  have  private  documents  of  the  same  tenor  to  be 
sure ;  I  mean  that  I  was  pleased  to  have  him  write 
kindly  of  me  to  others.  There  are  a  great  many 
bright  passages  in  the  two  volumes,  and  a  consider 
able  variety  of  them.  Of  course  I  could  not  expect 
that  all  the  world  should  be  as  much  interested  as 


136  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1893 

I,  but  I  can  say  that  anybody  who  can  bear  to  read 
letters  will  like  those. 

Bless  my  sweet  M.  from  all  trouble  and  with 
peace  for  another  year.  I  am  become  very  dis 
trustful  of  length  of  days.  .  .  . 

Your  fond  and  faithful 

*  FRA  FRA.  * 

December  31,  1893. 

I  have  had  an  overflow  of  proof-sheets,- very  un 
interesting  but  clamorous  for  attention,  which  has 
prevented  my  dedicating  these  holidays  to  the 
proper  use.  There  is  a  parcel  on  my  table  now,  but 
I  am  resolved  to  have  this  last  day  of  the  year 
to  myself  (as  much  as  a  coming  influx  of  company 
will  allow) .  I  want  to  send  a  wish  to  you  at  the 
moment  of  the  new  year,  and  I  expect  this  to  be  with 
you  tomorrow.  .  .  . 

I  am  very  glad  to  hear  of  the  baby  mastiff, 
and  have  long  wished  that  you  might  have  such 
a  friend.  I  am  glad  too  to  hear  of  Mr.  Ward's 
proposition  [to  read  Dante  with  you].  If  you 
accede  to  it  you  should  have  Scartazzini,  who  has 
made  the  other  editions  out  of  date,  and  I  should 
send  you  Scartazzini;  so  let  me  know.  I  got  a 
little  book  to  send  you  at  Christmas  —  biographical 
—  but  thought  I  would  look  into  it  first.  I  discov 
ered  pessimism,  cynicism,  scepticism,  and  enough 
of  these  to  disgust  me  —  for  there  was  no  reason 


1893]  T0  A  YOUNG  LADY  137 

but  a  disappointed  ambition  for  a  place  ;  so  I  did  n't 
send  the  book. 

Your  calendar  shall  see  me  through  the  year  if 
I  can  manage  to  keep  my  footing  in  the  flood  of 
time.  The  old  ones  are  marked  with  many  red- 
letter  days.  I  take  that  of  1893  out  of  the  left-hand 
pocket  at  this  moment.  ...  I  never  had  so  grave 
a  year  as  that  which  is  all  but  gone.  My  thoughts 
have  been  deeply  tinged  with  mortality  all  through. 
That  means  that  all  the  questions  which  we  can't 
answer  have  been  weighing  on  my  mind.  But  if  I 
can't  answer  them,  I  can  turn  them.  I  think  of  the 
human  creatures  that  I  have  known,  face  to  face,  or 
by  report,  and  make  my  answer  out  of  them.  A 
thousand  years  are  as  one  day  to  the  disposer  of  all 
the  things  that  trouble  us,  and  we  are  bound  to  the 
day  we  are  living,  and  only  by  great  effort  can  take 
a  glimpse  over  the  thousand  years. 

But  we  have  to  live  from  day  to  day,  and  I  hope 
you  find  some  pleasure  in  the  succession.  If  you 
have  grippe,  the  pleasure  will  be  less,  and  health  is 
one  of  the  first  things  to  be  asked  for  you.  I  should 
like  to  hear  that  you  have  some  good  society,  and 
perhaps  I  may  take  that  for  granted.  Mr.  Ward 
and  Dante  would  go  a  great  way,  but  it  is  whole 
some  to  see  a  great  many  people  if  they  are  of  the 
right  sort.  Even  I  see  people.  I  have  used  qualified 
freedom  from  lameness  to  look  up  a  few  old  friends. 
I  even  went  to  a  lunch  to  meet  M.  Paul  Bourget 


138  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1893 

the  other  day,  but  I  had  nothing  to  say  to  him,  for 
imperfect  hearing  disqualifies  me  from  conversation 
in  any  language  but  English.  I  don't  know  that  I 
lost  much  in  this  case.  I  found  other  people  with 
whom  I  talked  with  pleasure.  We  had  people  to 
dine  at  Christmas,  we  are  to  have  a  few  young 
people  (three  students  from  South  Carolina)  today. 
And  I  have  Catherine  Ireland  here,  for  the  whole 
winter,  or  longer,  and  she  is  a  very  great  pleasure. 
It  is  years  since  I  saw  much  of  her. 

I  am  getting  slowly  through  with  the  last  parcel 
of  ballads  (not  the  last  number  of  the  book,  there 
will  be  one  more  of  indexes,  etc.)  and  shall  be  very 
glad  to  have  it  off  my  hands,  for  now  it  is  only  a 
necessity  to  me  and  no  interest.  There  are  other 
things  which  I  should  like  to  do. 

Dearest  M.,  your  last  words  for  Christmas  fill 
my  heart  with  satisfaction  and  thankfulness  to  you 
and  for  you.  Receive  the  like  from  me,  and  with 
every  wish  that  love  can  form. 

Your  faithful 
>&  FRA  FRA.  >& 

[No  date.] 

These  from  a  proof-sheet  I  was  correcting  yester 
day: 

Ma  mie  regoit  de  mes  lettres 

Par  1'alouette  des  champs; 
Elle  m'envoie  les  siennes 

Par  le  rossignol  chantant. 


1894]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  139 

Sans  savoir  lire  ni  ecrire 

Nous  lisons  ce  qui  est  dedans; 

II  y  a  dedans  ces  lettres: 
Aime  moi,  je  t'aime  tant. 

...  I  think  it  was  a  good  time  to  be  writing  you 
these  words  while  you  were  in  church,  thinking  of 
me  a  little.  I  have  not  ceased  to  say  prayers,  and 
shall  not  while  I  breathe.  .  .  . 

14  May,  1894. 

.  .  .  We  have  here  an  interesting  old  Scotchman 
who  has  lived  33  years  in  India  —  an  archaeologist 
of  distinction.  He  has  published  authoritative 
books  on  the  Indian  temples  and  other  architecture 
and  knows  everybody  in  India.  I  have  had  talks 
with  him  about  the  missionary  work,  and  have 
heard  interesting  things,  a  little  of  which  I  must 
tell  you.  He  believes  in  missionary  work,  but,  said 
he,  people  are  christianized  without  missionaries. 
At  a  certain  place  with  a  hard  name  a  silversmith's 
son  got  possession  of  a  translation  of  the  Bible,  and 
he  was  seen  to  be  reading  it.  People  asked  him 
what  the  book  was ;  "  O  it  is  a  book  with  very  good 
stories  in  it,"  he  said.  "  Read  us  some !"  So  he 
began  to  read  to  them  and  large  audiences  gathered. 
They  had  to  take  a  room  for  the  reading  and  some 
two  hundred  would  gather.  After  a  while  a  mis 
sionary  came  to  the  place,  and  asking  about  the 
religious  condition  of  the  people,  found  that  there 
was  a  considerable  company  of  Christians  there. 


140  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1894 

How  was  this?  No  missionary  had  been  there? 
"No,"  they  said,  "but  we  have  had  the  book." 
"Ah  then,  you  must  wish  to  be  baptized?"  No, 
they  wanted  none  of  his  water.  Why  not?  Be 
cause  John  came  baptizing  with  water,  but  when 
the  Messiah  came  he  was  to  baptize  with  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  with  fire.  What  do  you  understand  by 
that?  Why,  when  our  hearts  are  full  of  good 
thoughts  and  desires,  that  is  a  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  how  about  the  fire?  Why,  when  our 
hearts  burn  with  love  toward  our  fellow  men,  is 
not  that  a  baptism  of  fire?  Then  the  missionary 
asked  them  if  they  had  read  Revelations.  Yes, 
that  is  a  good  book,  a  hard  book.  Do  you  under 
stand  it?  For  example,  what  can  be  the  meaning 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  that  was  seen  coming  down 
from  Heaven?  Look  down  on  that  village,  they 
said,  full  of  thieves,  liars,  and  every  sort  of  bad  man. 
Should  these  all  turn  about  and  become  good  men, 
would  not  that  be  a  New  Jerusalem  coming  down 
from  heaven? 

One  day  the  silversmith's  son  was  not  to  be  had 
to  read  to  them,  and  they  asked  some  poor  fellow 
of  their  number  to  take  his  place.  The  man  could 
not  read,  but  he  took  the  Bible  and  opened  it  very 
carefully  where  Job  should  be  and  gave  them  the 
first  five  or  six  chapters  from  memory.  Shortly 
after,  trouble  came  upon  him.  His  house  was 
burned  down,  his  wife  died,  his  son  died.  The  un- 


1 894]  T0  A  YOUNG  LADY  141 

believers  told  him  that  all  this  came  of  his  neglect 
ing  the  sacrifices  to  the  old  divinities.  The  man 
ceased  to  go  to  the  reading  of  the  Bible,  and  one  of 
the  usual  audience,  a  young  girl,  asked  him  why 
this  was.  It  was  because  he  could  not  bear  the 
taunts  of  the  people  he  should  meet  on  his  way. 
Why,  said  she,  Job  suffered  twice  as  much  as  you. 
But  Job  said, —  shall  I  receive  good  at  the  hand  of 
God  and  shall  not  I  receive  evil  ?  The  Lord's  name 
be  praised! 

There  is  a  good  deal  more  that  I  could  tell  you, 
which  reminds  me  of  what  dear  Mr.  Whittier  said 
about  a  book  I  lent  him  once  concerning  the  people 
of  Southern  India.  It  gave  him  great  joy  to  see 
that  God  had  in  his  own  ways  spoken  to  these  people 
too.  The  missionaries,  I  hear  from  this  man,  preach 
Matthew  and  Mark,  with  very  little  theology,  no 
particulars  of  the  theory  of  the  Atonement,  but  only 
that  Jesus  offered  himself  as  a  sacrifice  for  sin  — 
which  is  an  idea  that  commends  itself  to  their  way 
of  thinking. 

Roses  are  now  in  beautiful  leaf,  and  their  enemies 
have  done  little  harm  so  far.  My  feet  are  not  good 
enough  for  a  rose-grower,  who  should  be  making  con 
tinual  rounds.  .  .  .  We  shall  not  see  our  respec 
tive  roses  but  I  shall  see  yours  in  mine.  .  .  . 
Ever  your  faithful  and  most  loving 

^  FRA  FRA.  * 


142  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1895 

February  3,  1895. 

I  can  scarcely  write  without  touching  roses,  the 
roses  in  which  many  friends  strive  to  hide  a  fact. 
Indeed  I  cried,  No  more !  No  more !  for  they  were 
too  beautiful  for  words,  beautiful  enough  for  you, 
and  I  have  always  maintained  that  not  to  even 
the  loveliest  woman  in  the  world  should  too  many 
roses  be  offered.  If  I  could  only  have  diverted  one 

cluster  to  you,  and  another  to  L ,  I  should  not 

have  minded  the  numbers.  They  are  today  dis 
closing  new  charms  as  they  unfold.  I  think  I  never 
saw  anything  so  entirely  wonderful  and  worshipful. 
I  cannot  accept  them  as  mine.  I  felt  that  it  was 
all  but  a  sacrilege  and  that  a  dozen  of  roses,  perfect 
in  form  and  hue,  like  twelve  lovely  girls  at  the 
brightest  point  of  youth,  were  sent  to  help  out 
my  day.  What  I  did  was  to  fall  before  them  and 
worship  them. 

Well,  I  have  passed  the  line  now.1  The  fact  be 
came  public,  I  know  not  how.  I  had  a  letter  from 
a  dear  girl  in  Baltimore;  a  plate  with  Shakspere 
mottoes  from  Horace  Furness,  which  showed  knowl 
edge  in  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  I  am  not  in 
the  least  confused  by  my  promotion,  so  to  call  it. 
Am  I  a  sage?  Where  is  my  wisdom!  I  might 
almost  say  my  sobriety?  .  .  . 

Now,  my  sweet  M.,  I  must  tell  you  that  I  cannot 
look  at  myself  quite  as  you  depict  me  with  the  pen 

'His  yoth  birthday. 


i89S]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  143 

of  affection.  My  career  is  far  from  satisfying  me. 
All  that  I  can  see  of  myself  is  that  I  have  dearly 
loved  you  and  some  others.  I  pray  that  much  may 
be  forgiven  to  those  who  have  loved  much,  and  that 
is  all  I  have  to  proffer.  .  .  .  For  the  love  I  get, — 
that  is  like  heaven's  mercy,  and  no  account  can  be 
given  of  it  beyond  just  that. 

[No  date.] 

.  .  .  Your  friend  Charles  Norton  is  giving  a 
course  of  six  lectures  here  on  Dante,  and  Sanders 
Theatre  is  crowded  every  night.  I  do  not  remember 
any  literary  course  in  Cambridge  being  so  well  at 
tended,  and  it  is  all  sorts  of  people  that  go.  We 
are  so  much  belectured  in  college  on  every  kind  of 
topic  that  ordinarily  no  one  heeds. 

Mr.  Humphry  Ward  proved  to  be  no  strong  at 
traction.  I  neither  heard  nor  saw  him,  but  I  would 
hazard  a  conviction  that  all  his  art  criticism  con 
tained  nothing  better  than  a  child's  story  which  I 
heard  a  few  days  ago,  and  which  I  shall  have  to  tell 
at  the  risk  of  its  already  being  known  to  you,  for  I 
don't  know  where  it  came  from.  A  little  girl  look 
ing  at  Correggio's  Magdalen:  "Why,  that  lady  is 
dawdling!  she  is  reading  a  book  when  she  ought  to 
be  dressing!"  Maudlin  —  dawdlin!  Tell  this  to 
Mr.  Ward  if  it  is  new  to  you. 

I  hope  your  eyes  are  so  much  better  that  you  need 
not  get  a  maid  to  finish  my  short  letter  and  so  miss 
the  Correggio  story.  .  .  . 


144  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1895 

August  6,  1895. 

.  .  .  Perhaps  you  are  all  but  aboard  ship  while 
I  sit  inquiring  of  vacancy.  There  are  a  dozen  ob 
vious  remarks  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue  but  they 
shall  go  no  further.  I  am  thinking  of  you,  and 
wishing  for  you,  and  often  in  my  weariness  at  not 
being  able  to  mend  things,  all  but  wish  the  whole 
contest  over,  and  all  of  us  settled  in  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven;  a  very  simple  arrangement  not  so 
feasible  as  in  olden  days.  If  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  comes,  we  are  to  do  our  part  in  bringing  it 
.about,  and  that  means  patience  at  one  time  and 
activity  at  another.  I  ask  myself  when  I  go  to  bed, 
what  have  you  done  today  to  make  the  Kingdom 
come?  and  wonder  whether  sitting  over  my  desk 
can  have  any  such  tendency.  The  matter  is  not 
clear  ;  much  clearer  is  the  case  of  the  good  daugh 
ter,  sister,  friend  who  tries  to  make  the  world  pleas- 
anter  or  more  tolerable  for  her  kith  and  kin. 

This  is  only  to  say  that  I  am  bearing  you  in  mind, 
and  wishing  for  you  the  only  prayer  which  I  think 
.acceptable.  .  .  . 

September  22,  1895. 

"I  have  just  written  to  a  man  in  South  Carolina 
declining  to  read  and  give  an  opinion  of  his  trans 
lation  of  a  Tannhauser  of  540  pages  (he  asked  for 
only  two  or  three  cantos).  Luckily  he  sent  me 
some  fifty  lines  of  "  dedication,"  which  was  enough 


1 895]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  145 

to  show  that  he  was  not  the  man  for  the  business. 
This  is  the  way  people  conspire  against  your  time, 
when  very  little  of  it  is  left.  I  have  two  other 
attentats  of  like  sort  to  dispose  of.  These  things  are 
obstacles  to  one's  doing  what  one  would.  .  .  . 

Beware  of  dukes,  even  of  earls  (not  that  you  are  in 
danger  for  the  same  reason  as  the  Vanderbilts,  but 
there  are  other  reasons) .  I  don't  want  you  living  in 
England  because  it  is  so  far  off,  both  in  space  and 
in  manners  and  customs,  from  America.  Neither 
do  I  wish  you  settled  in  Bohemia  or  in  Germany. 
There  are  no  Max  Piccolominis  in  Bohemia  or 
Austria  and  never  were.  I  adore  the  finer  Italians ; 
still  I  should  part  with  you  reluctantly  to  the  best 
of  them,  though  I  don't  feel  warranted  in  refusing 
a  Confalonieri. 

My  house  was  filled  up  a  week  ago.  It  is  some 
thing  to  recover  five  people  who  have  been  trusted 
to  railroads,  some  of  them  for  three  months.  Will 
iam  James  looked  in  yesterday,  having  been  chan 
ging  places  for  about  that  time  and  doing  nothing 
but  draw  in  the  air.  He  meant,  he  said,  to  memorial 
ize  our  President  and  Fellows  to  the  effect  that  no 
intellectual  work  should  be  imposed  upon  or  per 
mitted  to  professors,  meaning,  I  gather,  that  they 
would  be  more  useful  with  fine  health  without 
further  advances.  He  was  amazed  that  I  could 
look  so  well  after  a  summer  spent  at  my  desk  and 
thought  I  must  have  a  marvelous  constitution.  I 


146  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1895 

am  alive  no  doubt  and  well  enough,  but  not  well 
enough  to  work  under  the  renewal  of  college  work. 
I  will  own  that  I  look  upon  this  with  some  aver 
sion  and  this  makes  me  think  that  I  had  better 
retire  after  this  year.  I  should  have  enough  to  do 
without  the  college,  though  the  question  of  hav 
ing  enough  to  live  upon  is  to  be  asked,  but  I  could 
never  stay  on  for  that  reason,  of  course.  Just  now 
the  reopening  of  the  college  will  be  very  incon 
venient  for  the  work  I  am  doing.  That  takes  all  my 
time  and  even  now  drags  on  slowly.  I  wish  I  were 
doing  something  which  would  be  interesting  to  tell 
you.  It  does  not  interest  even  me ;  still  it  must  be 
done.  Were  I  made  a  man  of  leisure  for  a  year  or 
two,  I  could  read  the  best  books  with  my  girls, 
bring  up  my  Dante  to  an  advanced  point  —  I  used 
to  read  Dante  with  my  wife  and  occasionally  others 
in  Stockbridge.  There  are  quantities  of  things 
which  I  wish  to  study;  I  don't  know  that  I  would 
not  undertake  the  Slavic  languages.  (There  is  a 
very  bright  man  hereabout  just  now  who  would 
serve  me  there.)  No  fear  of  not  having  enough  to 
do,  and  if  one  be  stopped  suddenly  in  the  midst  of 
it,  what  then?  .  .  . 

MONDAY  EVENING,  23rd  December,  1895. 
I  have  repented  keenly  of  my  moping  to  you,  but 
I  may  say  that  if  you  preferred  to  have  me  mope 
when  the  mood  was  on,  I  have  had  the  luck  of  the 


1 895]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  147 

wicked  by  getting  your  most  affectionate  response. 
You  shall  not  be  tried  again  if  I  have  any  control 
over  this  pen.  It  is  quite  true  that  I  am  extremely 
tired  and  yet  incapable  of  taking,  or  profiting  by, 
rest.  It  is  a  great  while  since  I  remitted  work  for 
a  day,  unless  possibly  I  spent  a  day  out  of  doors 
in  the  rose-season.  If  roses  could  last  the  year 
through  it  would  be  much  better.  Christmas  is 
always  a  strain  to  me.  I  have  a  lot  of  people  to 
look  after  and  never  am  pleased  with  what  I  send 
them.  This  time  I  have  not  taken  so  much  pains. 

A  complete  change  of  habitual  thoughts  would 
be  a  good  plan,  but  the  good  plans  are  the  impossible 
ones.  I  am  thoroughly  weary  of  ballads.  For 
months  I  have  been  doing  the  most  uninteresting 
and  tiresome  work  on  Indexes.  This  is  pretty 
nearly  finished,  but  I  have  a  good  bit  to  do  of 
another  kind,  and  feel  no  more  interest  in  the  busi 
ness.  But  while  I  am  explaining  how  I  got  into 
my  moping,  I  must  seem  to  be  moping  again.  So 
we  will  explain  no  more. 

I  did  not  send  you  William  James's  lecture  be 
cause  it  had  relation  to  my  own  state  of  mind.  It 
had  been  lying  here  for  you  more  than  a  month, 
and  I  did  not  imagine  that  you  would  take  means 
to  possess  yourself  of  it.  It  is  an  uncommonly 
good  piece,  isn't  it?  for  its  fervor  of  conviction  and 
fresh  and  vigorous  expression.  Will  has  lately  taken 
to  giving  lectures,  or  speeches,  at  girls'  colleges,  and 


148  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS         [1895 

is  fascinated  with  his  hearers,  whom  he  tells  me  that 
he  addresses  with  unrestrained  affectionate  flattery. 
He  will  go  anywhere  to  give  a  lecture  to  girls,  he 
says.  There  are  enough  girls  in  the  country  to  keep 
him  tolerably  busy  if  this  gets  out.  So  far  I  think 
he  has  had  this  pleasure  only  twice. 

I  went  myself  to  Radcliffe  College  for  one  hour 
some  ten  days  ago,  but  not  to  make  an  address. 
"Psychology"  covers  everything  and  excuses  every 
thing  to  W.  J.  He  goes  straight  at  the  psyche.  It 
cannot  be  but  that  he  charms  them  all.  I  am  as 
much  charmed  with  him  as  anybody. 

I  never  was  so  ashamed  of  my  country  as  during 
the  last  fortnight.1  The  folly  and  wicked  reckless 
ness  was  never  paralleled.  The  country  is  now 
properly  frightened,  but  great  mischief  has  been 
done  in  the  interim :  and  how  do  we  appear  to  the 
world  ?  Even  Cleveland  was  carried  away  by  "  poli 
tics."  Well,  I  agree  to  all  that  you  and  Mr.  Ward 
are  saying  about  it.  So  glad  that  you  are  reading 
with  Mr.  Ward  again. 

I  have  been  going  through  a  great  quantity  of 
Slavic  stuff — 40  or  50  volumes  perhaps — with  a 
reader,  alas,  and  not  with  my  own  eyes.  Very 
small  profit  in  a  literary  way,  and  the  only  comfort 
is  that  it  will  help  a  worthy  man  a  little. 

I  have  gone  back  to  reading  Miss  Austen  in  the 
evenings,  with  more  enjoyment  than  ever.  Happy 

lrThe  time  of  the  "Venezuela  Incident." 


1896]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  149 

Christmas,  dearest  M.  I  shall  end  with  words 
which  always  go  to  my  heart  when  you  use  them: 
more  and  more,  your  loving 

*  FRA  FRA.  * 

June  20,    1896. 

...  I  have  been  at  the  mercy  of  the  college, 
the  slave  of  Faculty  and  Committees.  Only  yester 
day  at  the  end  of  the  day  did  I  achieve  my  emanci 
pation  by  finishing  the  reading  of  a  large  pile  of 
examination  books  (repeating  66  points  77  times). 

The  roses,  poor  things,  have  had  to  see  to  them 
selves  this  past  week  and  more,  but  this  morning, 
having  begun  by  cutting  off  dead  or  dying  blooms, 
I  took  out  a  dear  young  English  girl  —  the  only 
young  English  girl  I  have  ever  known  —  to  look 
them  over,  and  they  enjoyed  her  approval  and 
praise.  .  .  .  She  leaves  America  in  about  a  week, 
and  I  do  not  expect  ever  to  see  her  again.  She  has 
been  very  happy  in  America  and  I  doubt  whether 
she  will  be  equally  so  in  Europe.  .  .  . 

You  know  I  was  almost  as  desperate  about  my 
roses  as  you  were  about  yours ;  yours  burned,  mine 
frozen.  I  planted  50  or  60  new  ones,  many  of  which 
are  bearing  fairly,  and  some  of  my  old  ones  revived 
under  good  treatment  (including  severe  cutting),  so 
that  this  morning  I  have  an  extremely  pretty  show 
and  should  like  to  have  you  see  it.  Of  all  roses,  to» 
have  only  one,  I  should  prefer  Gloire  de  Margottin; 


150  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1896 

but  who  would  have  only  one?  Who  would  go 
without  Mrs.  John  Laing  or  Marie  Baumann?  Of 
course  it  is  as  with  women :  only  one  may  be  perfect 
and  compounded  of  every  creature's  best,  but  one 
must  be  permitted  to  like  and  admire  several  others 
for  several  virtues.  Now  Gloire  de  M.,  though  I 
have  never  known  her  to  fail  to  charm,  is  not  so 
prim  in  her  dress  as  more  faultless  beauties  are,  has 
robes  loosely  flowing  and  not  severely  pinned :  I  am 
not  sure  that  everybody  would  like  her  best,  and  I 
don't  care  to  have  it  so.  If  I  could  arrange  society, 
every  nice  girl,  every  girl  whatever,  should  stand 
highest  in  at  least  one  man's  estimation  and  wor 
ship,  and  I  should  like  to  have  it  nearly  so  with 
the  roses. 

Well,  today  I  went  out  to  morning  service  with 
that  dear  little  English  girl.  Our  temple  was  too 
hot.  I  shortened  the  service.  On  reflection  I  don't 
think  I  am  satisfied  with  my  little  girl  as  to  roses. 
She  admired  doubtless,  but  I  can't  recall  anything 
like  ecstasy,  anything  like  worship,  though  I  put 
into  her  hands  some  most  worshipful  things.  On 
the  whole,  this  little  English  girl  did  not  gain  by 
being  presented  to  the  roses.  I  did  not  feel  this  at 
the  time,  but  it  has  come  to  me  since.  Hence  we 
deduce  a  rule:  before  you  give  your  heart  to  a 
woman  set  her  before  a  bed  of  well-chosen  roses. 
She  may  have  every  virtue,  commonly  so  reckoned, 
and  yet  be  deeply  wanting. 


1896]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  151 

But  O !  to  have  my  dear  M.  here  this  afternoon 
at  5l/z,  f°r  I  suppose  the  garden  will  never  look 
better  on  the  whole ;  but  Monday  would  answer,  for 
then  Crested  Moss  will  be  out  in  quantity.  I  wish 
you  may  be  having  many  of  these  yourself.  And 
then  I  could  wish  myself  in  your  garden  with  you. 
But  I  must  own,  and  perhaps  heed,  one  thing :  not 
only  has  time  failed  me  to  do  my  humble  duty  to 
these  fair  things,  but  bodily  strength.  I  could  not 
keep  at  the  work  for  a  day  or  for  five  or  six  hours 
together.  And  if  I  can't  do  this,  have  I  a  right  to 
go  on  with  roses  ? 

My  plan  now  is  to  indulge  in  two  or  three  days  of 
irresponsible  life  —  which  will  be  interrupted,  for 
Commencement  is  coming  and  my  classmates  will 
be  gathering  for  a  5Oth  anniversary!  And  then, 
having  cleared  off  this  desk,  which  is  a  chaos  of 
letters,  memoranda,  and  books,  to  set  to  work  to  do 
the  last  thing  for  the  concluding  and  long  delayed 
volume  of  my  ballad-book.  To  do  this  I  do  not  feel 
either  well  inclined  or  fairly  capable,  but  I  must 
make  no  excuse  of  health  or  weariness.  .  .  . 

I  do  not  expect  ever  to  come  to  Stockb ridge 
again!  I  have  even  been  asking  whether  it  is 
desirable  to  live  on  as  I  am  living.  Still  I  have 
not  resigned  my  place.  I  am  to  try  for  one  year 
more  to  do  my  part.  It  will  be  for  only  one  year.  I 
have  not  lost  an  hour  from  college  this  past  year; 
I  made  a  point  of  that.  But  I  did  my  last  piece  of 


152  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1896 

work,  with  a  sort  of  fear  that  I  might  not  finish  it. 
It  is  finished,  however.  Now  let  me  finish  my  book 
after  such  fashion  as  I  may  (the  trouble  is  that 
much  is  expected  by  confreres  in  my  line)  and  then 
let  what  will  come.  What  will  not  come  is  that  I 
shall  ever  think  less  of  my  dear  and  faithful  IVL 
or  love  her  less. 

SUNDAY,  July  14,  1896. 

...  [P.  S.]  Here  is  a  little  girl's  phrase  which 
you  may  present  to  anyone  who  is  exposed  to  sight 
seeing.  What  an  overwhelming  oppression  in  that 
way  our  countrymen  are  taking  upon  themselves  at 
this  season! 

"Zat  is  a  very  beautiful  sing:  but  I  don't  sink 


so." 


[The  last] 

CAMBRIDGE,  August  14,  1896. 

On  the  1 2th  you  were  to  move  on  to  Northeast 
Harbor.  Whether  at  Bar  Harbor  or  Northeast  you 
would  have  been  suffering  till  yesterday  from  the 
sun.  One  is  ashamed  to  be  the  victim  of  8°  or 
10°  rise  in  the  thermometer,  and  especially  when  one 
can  keep  within  doors,  but  I  have  been  capable  of 
no  work  during  the  "  heated  term."  But  a  letter  to 
you  is  far  from  being  work;  only  one  must  not 
write  too  much  of  doleful  feelings,  still  less  of  dole 
ful  emotions.  Doctors  have  been  at  me. 


1896]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  153 

My  letters  have  been  taken  up  with  the  conclud 
ing  scenes  in  the  career  of  my  dear  Philip  Abbot, 
who  lost  his  life  at  Mt.  Lefroy  twelve  days  ago.  I 
was  deeply  afflicted  by  this  loss.  He  had  been  for 
1 6  years  (since  his  I2th  year)  very  familiar  at  our 
house  and  was  my  boy  Frank's  most  intimate 
friend.  The  father  and  mother  have  all  that  time 
been  friends  of  ours.  I  counted  upon  him  to  be  the 
friend  of  my  children.  He  was  extraordinarily 
loved  and  esteemed  by  a  great  number  of  people 
of  all  places  and  professions,  as  was  shown  by  letters 
after  his  death,  and  by  people  coming  all  the  way 
from  Milwaukee  to  his  funeral. 

I  went  to  see  the  father  on  Sunday,  afraid  to 
face  him.  He  received  me  most  affectionately,  and 
said  that  he  was  on  the  point  of  coming  to  comfort 
me!  and  it  was  to  that  that  he  devoted  himself.  The 
mother  came  down  to  see  me,  a  delicate  woman, 
very  high-souled,  and  she  talked  to  me  for  half  an 
hour,  with  no  passionate  effusion,  of  the  consola 
tions  she  found.  I  have  never  known  a  mother  and 
son  to  have  such  an  entire  intimacy  as  these  two 
had,  and  yet  she  was  neither  destroyed  nor  cast 
down.  On  Monday,  one  of  the  hot  days,  was  the 
funeral  .  .  .  and  it  was  made  very  long.  We 
walked  a  long  way  from  the  Chapel  of  Mt.  Auburn 
to  the  grave,  preceded  by  an  angelic  choir,  who 
sang  uninterruptedly,  .  .  .  and  also  at  the  grave. 
The  only  effectual  consolation  is  to  accept  the  belief 


154  A  SCHOLAR'S  LETTERS          [1896 

that  in  the  thousand  years  which  with  God  are  but 
as  yesterday  the  present  grief  may  be  reconciled 
with  love.  I  have  been  reading  Job,  and  when  I 
read  that  book  I  wonder  that  I  do  not  read  it  every 
day.  It  does  not  explain  things,  in  showing  how 
men  have  suffered  before  us,  but  it  does  teach  us 
to  bow  our  heads  and  not  to  utter  things  which  we 
do  not  understand.  (Why  the  I4th  Chapter,  the 
most  pathetic  and  unanswerable  outpouring  of  de 
spair,  should  be  included  in  the  English  Service  is 
an  enigma.  .  .  .)  St.  Paul  tires  me,  with  his  I5th 
Corinthians,  which  I  hold  not  at  all  to  the  purpose. 
There  is  not  much  to  be  said.  No  single  chapter  of 
the  Bible,  Old  Testament  or  New,  suits  the  case, 
but  there  are  passages  in  the  Psalms  and  in  Reve 
lations  which  one  accepts  and  these,  supported  by 
music,  may  at  least  calm  the  feelings  and  suggest 
hope.  The  one  good  thing  in  the  Episcopal  Serv 
ice — or,  rather,  I  will  say,  the  thing  that  always 
affects  me  —  is  in  the  passage  in  which  thanks  are 
offered  for  those  who  have  finished  their  course  and 
rest  from  their  labors.  And  Wednesday  "I  Heard 
a  Voice  from  Heaven"  was  sung  with  such  sweet 
ness  as  would  draw  tears  from  a  stone.  However, 
though  the  music  I  heard  was  lovely,  a  great  mass 
is  more  impressive,  more  convincing,  to  me.  I  say, 
"convincing"  because  the  tones  are  a  voice  from 
Heaven. 

And  now  my   dearest  M.,   how  much   I   have 


1896]  TO  A  YOUNG  LADY  155 

thought  of  your  sweetness  in  coming  to  me  be 
tween  the  two  journeys.  And  what  a  delight  it 
was  to  see  you  looking  so  fresh.  I  ought  to  keep  a 
Kodak  to  take  a  picture  every  time  I  see  you.  The 
impression  is  sharp  and  unblurred  of  your  counte 
nance  that  Thursday  afternoon,  but  I  should  like  to 
have  it  fixed.  Think  what  a  treasure  to  have  your 
face  to  look  at  every  time  we  met,  which  alas  for 
me,  (but  blessing  on  you!)  would  now  be  rare.  I 
might  have  had  a  large  portfolio. —  [Here  follows  a 
charming  list  of  remembered  meetings.]  And  I 
want  you  in  a  many-flowered  pretty  gown,  standing 
on  your  piazza.  But  people  never  remember  things 
in  time.  If  ever  I  fall  in  with  a  lover  worth  the 
name,  I  may  suggest  to  him  what  he  might  do. 

I  hope  you  are  really  enjoying  Mt.  Desert  and 
will  not  take  a  cold  or  have  any  drawback. 

Au  revoir  and  benedicite. 

Your  f.  and  f. 

^    FRA  FRA.  ^ 


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